The volley fired on Bachelor's Walk, as it echoed down the long valleys of the world, seemed to serve the purpose of Joshua's trumpet. Thereafter all the walls of civilisation began to crash down one after another with the roar of ruined firmaments.
Forty-eight hours later Austria declared war.
On Thursday Mr. Asquith, speaking in a crowded and quiet house, proposed the postponement of the Home Rule Bill.
Even the hotheads were sober now.
Stanley Bessemere discarded his uniform of an Ulster Volunteer in haste, and turned up at the club in chastened mood. He was blatant still, a little furtive, notably less truculent. The martial refrain Smith and I had given place to the dulcet coo We must all pull together.
"Is he ashamed?" Mrs. Lewknor asked her husband, hushed herself, and perhaps a little guilty.
"My dear," the Colonel replied. "Shame is not a word known to your politician. He's thoroughly frightened. All the politicians are. There're bluffing for all they're worth."
On the Saturday morning the Colonel went to the club. The junior member for Beachbourne, who was there, and for once uncertain of himself, showed himself childishly anxious to forget and forgive.
"Now look here, Colonel!" he said, charming and bright. "If there's an almighty bust-up now, shall you really blame it all on Ulster? Honest Injun!"
The Colonel met him with cold flippancy.