“I received this dispatch from London this morning,” he said. “Baron Knigenstein has left for Berlin to gain the Emperor’s consent to an agreement which we have already ratified. The affair is as good as settled; it is a matter now of a few days only.”
“Germany!” she exclaimed, incredulously, “I thought it was to be Russia.”
“So,” he answered, “did I. I have to make a certain rather humiliating confession. I, who have always considered myself keenly in touch with the times, especially since my interest in European matters revived, have remained wholly ignorant of one of the most extraordinary phases of modern politics. In years to come history will show us that it was inevitable, but I must confess that it has come upon me like a thunder clap. I, like all the world, have looked upon Germany and England as natural and inevitable allies. That is neither more nor less than a colossal blunder! As a matter of fact, they are natural enemies!”
She sank into a chair, and looked at him blankly.
“But it is impossible,” she cried. “There are all the ties of relationship, and a common stock. They are sister countries.”
“Don’t you know,” he said, “that it is the like which irritates and repels the like. It is this relationship which has been at the root of the great jealousy, which seems to have spread all through Germany. I need not go into all the causes of it with you now; sufficient it is to say that all the recent successes of England have been at Germany’s expense. There has been a storm brewing for long; to-day, to-morrow, in a week, surely within a month, it will break.”
“You may be right,” she said; “but who of all the Frenchwomen I know would care to reckon themselves the debtors of Germany?”
“You will owe Germany nothing, for she will be paid and overpaid for all she does. Russia has made terms with the Republic of France. Politically, she has nothing to gain by a rupture; but with Germany it is different. She and France are ready at this moment to fly at one another’s throats. The military popularity of such a war would be immense. The cry to arms would ring from the Mediterranean to the Rhine.”
“Oh! I hope that it may not be war,” she said. “I had hoped always that diplomacy, backed by a waiting army, would be sufficient. France at heart is true, I know. But after all, it sounds like a fairy tale. You are a wonderful man, but how can you hope to move nations? What can you offer Germany to exact so tremendous a price?”