Mr. Foley half-closed his eyes and sighed.
"Oh, my dear Maraton," he murmured, "it isn't a question of belief! It's like asking me whether I believe I can see from here into my own drawing-room. The figures in there are real enough, aren't they? So is the cloud I can see gathering all the time over our heads. It is a question only of the propitious moment—of that there is no manner of doubt."
"You speak of affairs," Maraton admitted, "of which I know nothing. I do not even understand the balance of power. I always thought, though, that every great nation, our own included, paid a certain amount of insurance in the shape of huge contributions towards a navy and army; that we paid such insurance as was necessary and were rewarded with adequate results."
Mr. Foley forgot his depression for an instant, and smiled.
"What a theorist you are! It all depends upon the amount of insurance you take up, whether the risk is covered. We've under-insured for many years, thanks to that little kink in our disposition. We got a nasty knock in South Africa and we had to pay our own loss. It did us good for a year or two. Now the pendulum has just reached the other extreme. We've swung back once more into our silly dream. Oh, Maraton, it's true enough that we have great problems to face sociologically! Don't think that I underrate them. You know I don't. But every time I sit and talk to you, I have always at the back of my mind that other fear. . . . Have you seen Maxendorf to-night?"
"I have just left him," Maraton replied.
"An interesting interview?"
"Very!"
Mr. Foley gripped his arm.
"My friend," he said,—"you see, I am beginning to call you that—you have talked to-night with one of the most wonderful and the most dangerous enemies of our country. You won't think me drivelling, will you, or presuming, if I beg you to remember that fact, and that you are, notwithstanding your foreign birth, one of us? You are an Englishman, a member of the English House of Parliament."