“Yes, Mr. Sabin! Mind, I know this by chance only. I am not concerned one way or the other. My quarrel with him is a private one. I am robbed for the present of my vengeance by a power to which I am forced to yield implicit obedience. So, for the present, I have forgotten that he is my enemy. He is safe from me, yet if last night I had struck home, I should have ridded your country of a great and menacing danger. Perhaps—who can tell—he is a man who succeeds—I might even have saved England from conquest and ruin.”
They had reached the top of Piccadilly, and downward towards the Park flowed the great afternoon stream of foot-people and carriages. Wolfenden, on whom his companion’s words, charged as they were with an almost passionate earnestness, could scarcely fail to leave some impression, was silent for a moment.
“Do you really believe,” he said, “that ours is a country which could possibly stand in any such danger? We are outside all Continental alliances! We are pledged to support neither the dual or the triple alliance. How could we possibly become embroiled?”
“I will tell you one thing which you may not readily believe,” Felix said. “There is no country in the world so hated by all the great powers as England.”
Wolfenden shrugged his shoulders.
“Russia,” he remarked, “is perhaps jealous of our hold on Asia, but——”
“Russia,” Felix interrupted, “of all the countries in the world, except perhaps Italy, is the most friendly disposed towards you.”
Wolfenden laughed.
“Come,” he said, “you forget Germany.”
“Germany!” Felix exclaimed scornfully. “Believe it or not as you choose, but Germany detests you. I will tell you a thing which you can think of when you are an old man, and there are great changes and events for you to look back upon. A war between Germany and England is only a matter of time—of a few short years, perhaps even months. In the Cabinet at Berlin a war with you to-day would be more popular than a war with France.”