It was the world of the moment. Such things as I had been recalling had happened that very night; they had happened that very morning; they would happen through that day, and through the next day and the next—till their purpose was accomplished. What that purpose was to be—But that I was to learn a little later.
That is to say, a little later I got a light on the outlook which has been sufficient for me to walk by; but of it I will tell you when the time comes.
For in the mean time the tide was rising. As Lovey lay smiling himself into heaven the national spirit was mounting and mounting, quietly, tensely, with excitement held in leash till the day of the Lord was very near at hand.
All through March events had developed rapidly. On the first day of that month the government had revealed Germany’s attempt to stir up Mexico and Japan against the United States. A few days later Germany herself had admitted the instigation. A few days later still Austria had given her approval to unlimited submarine warfare. A few days later still Nicholas was deposed in Petrograd. The country was marching; the world was marching; the heart was marching. It was difficult for the mind to keep up with the immensity of such happenings or to appraise them at their value. I do not assert that I so appraised them; I only beg you to understand that what I wanted and Cantyre wanted and Regina wanted, each of us for himself and herself, became curiously insignificant.
Not that we were working with the same ends in view. By no means! Cantyre was still opposed to war as war, and bitterly opposed to war if it involved the United States. That he was kicking against the pricks, as Regina asserted, I couldn’t see; but that he was feeling the whole situation intensely was quite evident.
The result, however, was the same when it came to balancing personal interests against the public weal. The public weal might mean one thing to him and another thing to me, but to us both it overrode private resentment. There was a moratorium of resentment. We might revive it again; but for the moment it vanished out of sight.
CHAPTER XXXI
So we came to that determining moment when we held our famous patriotic meeting at the Down and Out.