Pachmann was sitting at the window, staring idly out at the deepening shadows. He arose at once at the sound of her entrance.
"Miss Vard," he said, "there is something I wish to say to you. Will you not sit down?" and he placed a chair for her. "What I have to say is most serious, and whatever your feeling of ill-usage may be, I hope you will try to look at the matter also a little from my side. The situation is this: Your father, as you doubtless know, is the inventor of a mechanism which will make the nation possessing it mistress of the world. That nation must be Germany. Apart from my ambition for my country and my love of her, I believe that she is the nation best fitted to possess it. At any cost, it must be hers—no cost can be too great; a hundred lives, a thousand lives, millions of treasure—all these would be sacrificed gladly, without hesitation. You understand?"
"Yes," said Kasia. "I think I understand."
"It is your father's dream, as I suppose you also know," Pachmann continued, "to bring about a world-wide peace by causing all nations to strike hands together in a sort of universal brotherhood. He demands that, to enter this brotherhood, Germany relinquish her share of Poland and restore Elsass and Lorraine to France. He requires, too, the virtual abdication of our ruling house. To such conditions Germany cannot consent. Rather than that, we should prefer a hundred times the present status. For Germany has nothing to fear from the future.
"Now, Miss Vard, let me say at once that I regard your father's dream as a dream and nothing more. It cannot be realised. There is only one way in which world-peace can be secured—let your father consent to place this power in our hands, and there will be no more war—or, at most, only one very short and decisive war. If your father is in earnest, if he is not mad, he will consent to this proposal. I need hardly add that, if he does consent, he has only to name his own reward—Germany will pay it gladly. Wealth, position, the suzerainty of a nation—all this Germany is prepared to grant."
"You have placed this before him?" Kasia asked.
"Yes; it was placed before him at much greater length at our second conference."
"And he refused?"
"He refused; but we cannot take that refusal."
"Why do you tell me all this?"