“There!” she said, “I trust you: you are quite, quite forgiven. I know you will make it all right, you will see that my pleasure and happiness are not taken away from me by any stupid quarrels with which I have nothing to do. Work for a little while longer, if you insist on it. And when you come up to bed, will you come ever so quietly? I may be just going off to sleep, and if you disturb me, I shall begin thinking about all those horrid things again, and shall lie awake miserable till morning.”
“Sleep well,” said he.
Hermann Gurtner, like most successful men in any walk of life, had a great power of absorbed meditation, that went on unconsciously in his brain, while the more superficial part of it was actively engaged in receiving and examining and noting the information on which his decision would be based. Now, when he was left alone, he spread those sources in front of his brain, and his intelligence darted about, now scrutinizing one, now another, while the subconscious distillation from them soaked into his inmost mind. At other moments he stirred them all up together, and put their stewing-pot back over the fire, with the lid on, letting them simmer and bubble together in the dark and the heat and the steam. For the next hour he did this, occasionally walking up and down his room, but for the most part sitting quite still in his chair, biting his nails.
He was intensely anxious: the whole situation seemed to him about as menacing as a situation could be; but as a counterweight to this anxiety, he enjoyed the ecstasy that always accompanies the exercise to the utmost of trained and sharpened faculties. He would infinitely have preferred a serene world, unmenaced by war, but since he had not got the ordering of that, he was like a jackal waiting for the result of the battle of the lions. There would be bits to pick up, discarded fragments of provender, even before the imperial beasts proceeded to tear each other, for in that national excitement they would have forgotten about their dinner.... It was but little to them, but it would make an immense store for a jackal.
Thus it was not only, nor indeed mainly, the possible cataclysm that confronted him: he saw with at least as much lucidity, the possibility of a huge financial coup for himself, possessed as he was of information known probably only to the War Council in Germany, and to his agent in Berlin. The War Council’s policy for the moment was clearly to observe the utmost possible secrecy....
There were several pictures which he unrolled and spread out before his mind. The first and the largest of all was the cypher message he had received from his agent in Berlin, that throughout the length and breadth of Germany secret mobilization of the armies was going on, under the excuse of “autumn manœuvres.” He did not doubt what those “autumn manœuvres” were to be, for earlier in the week he had ascertained that there was tremendous activity in Krupps’ Works at Essen. No doubt the English Cabinet was also aware of this, but the English Cabinet was not “out” to make money. They would talk about it, and consider what it meant, and no doubt make arrangements in view of its meaning what it certainly did mean; but in the interval, he, financier and business man, was free to act while they were considering national defence.
All his life he had relied entirely on his own judgment, had never had a partner in his business, and from the time that he had sat, an office boy, on the hard stool of a German house in London, with the fire to build, and this difficult English language to learn, he had found no reason for trusting the opinion of others more highly than his own....
Germany was secretly mobilizing.... Krupps’ works were forging and hammering night and day.... A third ingredient in the boiling-pot was the news which his wife had given him, namely, that the German Ambassador was anxious to know what the feeling in England was with regard to trouble in Ireland. When she told him that, he had drawn no conclusions from it, except that the statement that the Emperor would be heart-broken when he heard of the seriousness of the position, could not possibly be true. There must be something behind that, something that accounted more reasonably for the Emperor’s grief when he should hear that there was a possibility, if not more, of civil war in Ireland. But what could it be? These inquiries and their ludicrous interpretation meant something. It was not the German way to take the trouble to acquire information, unless it was to be of some use. Twice he peered into the stewing-pot, and found that ingredient still unsoftened and uncooked by the boiling it experienced over his hot fire of his brain. It remained still hard and unfit to add sustenance to the stew....
Then suddenly this intractable material liquefied on the touch of a conjecture. What if Germany wanted to ascertain whether England would be so much immersed in internal troubles, as not to be able to get her head above the troubled sea of European tumult? And, at that conjecture, all his acumen shouted approbation to him, as at the solving of a riddle in Dumb-Crambo.
In this fresh light he went over again all that he had previously examined. Austria had made unreasonable and preposterous demands on Serbia and Russia had remonstrated. That was all that was officially known. To-night’s private information from Berlin had told him that Germany was preparing for war. From that he had deduced that Germany was arming herself against Russia, and if Russia persisted in her remonstrance, she would find the Central Empires against her. France would necessarily range herself with Russia. And would Great Britain join her European Allies?