"Ah, well, God bless you, Constance! I wish you'd give me the news."
"I will, directly you give me a chance to get in a word. Well, John is at Westminster, in consultation with the Foreign Office people, and nothing definite has been done yet; but the great point is, to my thinking, that the offer should ever have been made."
"Why, Constance, whatever has bewitched you? I never knew you to begin at the end of a thing before."
And indeed it was unlike Constance Grey. She was in high spirits, and somehow this little touch of illogical weakness in her struck me as being very charming. She laughed, and said it was due to my persistent interruptions. And then she gave me the news.
"America has offered to join hands with us."
"Never!"
"Yes. The most generous sort of defensive alliance, practically without conditions, and—'as long as Great Britain's present need endures.' Isn't it splendid? John Crondall regards it as the biggest thing that has happened; but he is all against accepting the offer."
There had been vague rumours at the time of the invasion, and again, of a more pointed sort, when Britain declared war. But every one had said that the pro-German party and the ultra-American party were far too strong in the United States to permit of anything beyond expressions of good-will. But now, as I gathered from the copy of the Evening Standard which Constance gave me:
"The heart of the American people has been deeply stirred by two considerations: Germany's unwarrantable insolence and arrogance, and Britain's magnificent display of patriotism, ashore and afloat, in fighting for her independence. The patriotic struggle for independence—that is what has moved the American people to forgetfulness of all jealousies and rivalries. The rather indiscreet efforts of the German sections of the American public have undoubtedly hastened this offer, and made it more generous and unqualified. The suggestion that any foreign people could hector them out of generosity to the nation from whose loins they sprang, finally decided the American public; and it is fair to say that the President's offer of alliance is an offer from the American people to the British people."
"But how about the Monroe Doctrine?" I said to Constance, after running through the two-column telegram from Washington, of which this passage formed part.