Monsieur Douaille had the expression of a man who doubts. Selingman frowned. He was suddenly immensely serious. He struck the palm of one hand a great blow with his clenched fist.
"Why is it that no one in the world understands," he cried, "what Germany wants? I tell you, Monsieur Douaille, that we don't hate your country. We love it. We crowd to Paris. We expand there. It is the holiday place of every good German. Who wants a ruined France? Not we! Yet, unless there is a change in the international situation, we shall go to war with you and I will tell you why. There are no secrets about this sort of thing. Every politician who is worth his salt knows them. The only difficulty is to know when a country is in earnest, and how far it will go. That is the value of our meeting. That is what I am here to say. We shall go to war with you, Monsieur Douaille, to get Calais, and when we've got Calais—oh, my God!" Selingman almost reverently concluded, "then our solemn task will be begun."
"England!" Monsieur Douaille murmured.
There was a brief pause. Selingman had seemed, for a moment, to have passed into the clouds. There was a sort of gloomy rapture upon his face. He caught up Douaille's last word and repeated it.
"England! England, and through her...."
He moved to the sideboard and filled his tumbler with wine. When he came back to his place, his expression had lightened.
"Ah, well! dear Monsieur Douaille," he exclaimed, patting the other's shoulder in friendly fashion, "to-night we merely chatter. To-night we are here to make friends, to gain each the confidence of the other. To ourselves let us pretend that we are little boys, playing the game of our nation—France, Germany, and Russia. Germany and Russia, to be frank with you, are waiting for one last word from Germany's father, something splendid and definite to offer. What we would like France to do, while France loses its money at roulette and flirts with the pretty ladies at Ciro's, is to try and accustom itself not to an alliance with Germany—no! Nothing so utopian as that. The lion and the lamb may remain apart. They may agree to be friends, they may even wave paws at one another, but I do not suggest that they march side by side. What we ask of France is that she looks the other way. It is very easy to look the other way. She might look, for instance—towards Egypt."
