by Germany.
To-morrow you will find that Russia has intervened. If Vienna disregards
her, there will be mobilisation along the frontiers. It is my private and
very firm impression that Germany is mobilising to-day, and secretly."

Mr. Selingman laughed good-humouredly.

"Well, well," he said, "let us hope it is not quite so bad as that."

"You are frightening me, Captain Fielder," Mrs. Barlow declared. "I am
going to take you off to play bridge."

They left the room. Selingman looked after them a little curiously.

"Your military friend," he remarked, "is rather a pessimist."

"Well, we haven't many of them," Norgate replied. "Nine people out of ten
believe that a war is about as likely to come as an earthquake."

Selingman glanced towards the closed door.

"Supposing," he said, dropping his voice a little, "supposing I were to
tell you, young man, that I entirely agreed with your friend? Supposing I
were to tell you that, possibly by accident, he has stumbled upon the
exact truth? What would you say then?"

Norgate shrugged his shoulders.

"Well," he observed, "we've agreed, haven't we, that a little
lesson would be good for England? It might as well come now as at
any other time."

"It will not come yet," Mr. Selingman went on, "but I will tell you what
is going to happen."

His voice had fallen almost to a whisper, his manner had become
portentous.

"Within a week or two," he said, "Germany and Austria will have declared
war upon Russia and Servia and France. Italy will join the allies--that
you yourself know. As for England, her time has not come yet. We shall
keep her neutral. All the recent information which we have collected
makes it clear that she is not in a position to fight, even if she wished
to. Nevertheless, to make a certainty of it, we shall offer her great
inducements. We shall be ready to deal with her when Calais, Ostend,
Boulogne, and Havre are held by our armies. Now listen, do you flinch?"

The two men were still standing in the middle of the room. Selingman's
brows were lowered, his eyes were keen and hard-set. He had gripped
Norgate by the left shoulder and held him with his face to the light.

"Speak up," he insisted. "It is now or never, if you mean to go through
with this. You're not funking it, eh?"

"Not in the least," Norgate declared.

For the space of almost thirty seconds Selingman did not remove his gaze.
All the time his hand was like a vice upon Norgate's shoulder