anxiety.

"If you are right, Lord Dorminster," he pronounced presently, "the world
has rolled backwards these last ten years, and we who have failed to
mark its retrogression may have a terrible responsibility thrust upon
us."

"Politically, I am afraid I agree with you," Nigel replied. "Only the
idealist, and the prejudiced idealist, can ignore the primal elements in
human nature and believe that a few lofty sentiments can keep the
nations behind their frontiers. War is a terrible thing, but human life
itself is a terrible thing. Its principles are the same, and force will
never be restrained except by force. If the League of Nations had been
established upon a firmer and less selfish basis, it certainly might
have kept the peace for another thirty or forty years. As it is, I
believe that we are on the verge of a serious crisis."

"War for us is an impossibility," Mr. Mervin Brown declared frankly,
"simply because we cannot fight. Our army consists of policemen; science
has defeated the battleship; and practically the same conditions exist
in the air."

"You sent for me, I presume, to ask for my advice," Nigel said. "At any
rate, let me offer it. I have reason to believe that the negotiations
between Prince Shan and Oscar Immelan have not been entirely successful.
Send for Prince Shan and question him in a friendly fashion."

"Will you be my ambassador?" the Prime Minister asked.

Nigel hesitated for a moment.

"If you wish it," he promised. "Prince Shan is in some respects a
strangely inaccessible person, but just at present he seems well
disposed towards my household."

"Arrange, if you can," Mr. Mervin Brown begged, "to bring him here
to-morrow morning. I will try to have available a copy of the dispatch
from Jesson. It refers to matters which I trust Prince Shan will be able
to explain."

Nigel lingered for a moment over his farewell.

"If I might venture upon a suggestion, sir," he said, "do not forget
that Prince Shan is to all intents and purposes the autocrat of Asia. He
has taught the people of the world to remodel their ideas of China and
all that China stands for. And further than this, he is, according to
his principles, a man of the strictest honour. I would treat him, sir,
as a valued _confrere_ and equal."

The Prime Minister smiled.

"Don't look upon me as being too intensely parochial, Dorminster," he
said. "I know quite well that Prince Shan is a man of genius, and that
he is a represe