Merrill grinned as he tossed his cigarette case over.
'Well,' he remarked, 'you don't seem to be exactly spoiling for the fray, do you?'
Lavendale lit a cigarette.
'Look here,' he said, 'it's all very well for you fellows to talk. You've got the war fever in your blood. You're in it deep yourselves and there's a sort of gloomy satisfaction in seeing every one else in the same box. The chap who goes out to provoke a fight is worse, of course, but the one who springs up and reaches for his gun at the first chance of joining in, is playing his game, isn't he?'
'Perhaps you are right,' Merrill admitted.
'I'm not telling you or any one else exactly what my opinion is about America's policy,' Lavendale continued. 'I'll only remind you that, even when those truculent forefathers of ours went out to fight, they stopped to put on their armour. Is there anything fresh?'
'I don't know,' was the somewhat doubtful reply. 'There is a queer sort of feeling of apprehension everywhere this morning. The Chief's been round to see the Prime Minister and on to the Admiralty. There's a rumour that he went round to Buckingham Palace, too. Looks as though there were something up.'
'You know all about it, I suppose,' Lavendale remarked quietly.
'Not a thing!'
The young American knocked the ash from his cigarette.