Suddenly he threw his arms out, shaking his fists.
“And you tell me the Emperor will come to England in the autumn or the winter,” he said. “What does that mean? Is it merely a lie to make us doze and sleep again? Or, lieber Gott, is it an irony? How does he mean to come? As a guest of the family of his mother, or as their conqueror? Answer me that! His visit here! Will he come on a warship, or on his yacht? Is he coming to the opera to listen to music, or to Westminster Abbey to be crowned? God damn these kings when they see themselves as God’s anointed. They upset finance; there is no doing anything with them!”
She laughed.
“Hermann, you are having a nightmare,” she said. “You’re talking in your sleep. The Ambassador told me there was no stronger affection in the Emperor’s heart, except his love for Germany, than his affection for England. He said the Emperor would be heart-broken at the thought of trouble in Ireland.”
“Ach, Aline, you are simpler than a Parsifal,” he said impatiently. “Would he not say that in any case?”
“He wouldn’t if it was not true,” she said. “He was here as my guest: he would not tell me lies as he ate his dinner!”
Hermann kicked away a footstool that lay in the path of his prowling walk.
“And because he was here as your guest, he may not lie to you?” he asked. “That would be a queer state of things! Where’s the use of a diplomat if he may not say what will be of service to his Fatherland? What is a dinner, what is hospitality to a good German, when his brain can help his country? Indeed, heart’s dearest, you have forgotten much if you think that: you have become almost as blind as these golfing Englishmen. Is not the call of the All-Highest, the chance to serve him, to sound louder in German ears than little proverbs about eating salt? Have we all got to become members of the race we live among when we go out to dine with them?”
He resumed his walk, taking a cigar from a table as he passed, and then throwing it uncut and unlit into the fireplace.
“And what is the loudest call for me, Aline?” he asked. “Here am I, German, here am I English also, and so are you. I speak of my interests, you understand, not yet of my sympathies: I speak of my money, my business, my credit. That point will face me—it faces me now—unless I am more mistaken than I have ever been yet. I must act, and act quickly, before the news I have received gets known, for there is no use in rowing, however hard, when you are once in the rapids. I have immense interests in Germany: I have immense interests here. I have to choose, before all power of choice is taken from me. War! War! What gigantic ruin may it not mean!”