."

"President Wilson did," Chalmers grunted. "You can't say that the
country ever backed him up. That's the worst of us on the other side--we
so seldom really get a common voice."

"The League of Nations was a thundering good idea," Nigel declared, "but
it belongs to Utopia and not to this vulgar planet."

"Just so," Chalmers rejoined, "and yet you are about the only nation who
ever took it into her bosom and suckled it. To be perfectly frank with
you, now, what other nation in the world is there, except yours, which
is obeying the conventions strictly? I tell you frankly, we keep our eye
on Japan, and we build a good many commercial ships which would astonish
you if you examined them thoroughly. Our National Guard, too, know a bit
more about soldiering than their grandfathers. You people, on the other
hand, seem to have become infatuated pacifists. I can't tell tales out
of school, but I don't like the way things are going on eastwards. Asia
means something different now that that amazing fellow, Prince Shan, has
made a great nation of China."

"I am entirely in accord with you," Nigel agreed, "but what is one to do
about it? Our present Government has a big majority, trade at home and
abroad is prosperous, the income tax is down to a shilling in the pound
and looks like being wiped out altogether. Everybody is fat and happy."

"Just as they were in 1914," Chalmers remarked significantly.

"More so," Dorminster asserted. "In those days we had our alarmists.
Nowadays, they too seem to have gone to sleep. My uncle--"

"Your uncle was an uncommonly shrewd man," Chalmers interrupted. "I was
going to talk about him."

"After lunch," Nigel suggested, rising to his feet. "Here come my cousin
and some of her tennis friends. Karschoff is lunching with us, too. You
know him, don't you? Come along and I'll introduce you to the others."

It was a very cheerful party who, after a few minutes under the trees,
strolled into luncheon and took their places at the round table reserved
for them at the end of the room. Maggie at once took possession of
Chalmers.

"I have been so anxious to meet you, Mr. Chalmers," she said. "They tell
me that you represent the modern methods in American diplomacy, and that
therefore you have been made first secretary over the heads of half a
dozen of your seniors. How they must dislike you, and how clever you
must be!"

"I don't know that I'm so much disliked," the young man answered, with a