"My offer itself is a very simple one," Fischer continued. "Your secret service is so bad that you probably know nothing of what is happening. Ours, on the other hand, is still marvellously good, and what I am going to tell you is surely the truth. Japan is accumulating great wealth. She is saving her ships and men for one purpose, and one purpose only. Europe could not bribe her highly enough to take a more active part in this war. Her price was one which could not be paid. She demanded a free hand with the United States."
"This," Pamela admitted, "is quite interesting, but it is entirely in the realms of conjecture, is it not?"
"Not wholly," Fischer insisted. "At the proper time I should be prepared to bring you evidence that tentative proposals were made by Japan to both England and France, asking what would be their attitude, should she provide them with half a million men and undertake transport, if at the conclusion of the war she desired a settlement with the United States. The answer from France and England was the same—that they could not countenance an inimical attitude towards the States."
"You are bound to admit, then," Pamela remarked, "that England played the game here."
"The bribe was not big enough," Fischer replied drily. "England would sell her soul, but not for a mess of pottage. To proceed, however, Japan has practically kept out of the war. She is enjoying a prosperity never known before, and for every million pounds' worth of munitions she exports to Russia, she puts calmly on one side twenty-five per cent, to accumulate for her own use. At the conclusion of the war she will be in a position she has never occupied before, and while the rest of the world is still gasping, she will proceed to carry out what has been the dream of her life—the invasion of your Western States."
"I admit that this is plausible," Pamela confessed, "but you are only pointing out a very obvious danger, for which I imagine that we are already fairly well prepared."
"Believe me," Fischer said earnestly, "you are not. It is this fact which makes the whole situation so vital to you. Later on in our negotiations, I will show you proof of your danger. Meanwhile, let me proceed to the offer which I am empowered to make, which comes direct from the one person in Germany whose word is unshakable."
Pamela changed her position a little, as though to escape from the sunlight which was finding its way underneath the broad blinds. Her eyes were fixed upon her visitor. She listened intently to every word he had to say. Despite some vague feeling of mistrust, which she acknowledged to herself might well have been prejudiced, she found the situation interesting, even stimulating. Her few excursions into the world of high politics had never brought her into such a position as this. She felt both flattered and interested—attracted, too, in some nameless way, by the man's personality, his persistence, his daring, his whole-heartedness. The situation was instinct with interest to her.
"But why make it to me?" she murmured.
"You are to be my delegate," he answered. "Take the substance of what I say to you, to your uncle. Try, for your country's sake, to interest him in it. The offer which I make shall save you a vast amount of sacrifice. It shall save your dislocating the industries of the country and sowing the seeds of a disturbing and yet inadequate militarism. I offer you, in short, a German alliance against Japan."