No, no. Lack of mutual understanding was the common danger. To increase it was the German trump-card.
"People talk of America's largely unconscious power to wreck the world's best interests. She won't!" he cried with a passion that seemed alien to his nature; "but if there's even a danger of it, it is because of innocent susceptibilities which the underground people, Schwarzenberg and her crew, are rubbing raw." And there was another thing. "If they should 'get at' Wilson, we'd be in a bad way."
"The whole world would be in a bad way," said Napier, with a dizzying sense of the issues at stake.
"Yes, the whole world," Taylor agreed. And on his face, too, was a deeper gravity.
"I heard something last night"—Napier sat up suddenly—"that made me furious. I denied it. I want to hear you deny it. Fellow from Washington told us the President has given up receiving the British Ambassador."
"It's true."
"My God! then Bernstorff has got him!"
"Not at all. It's true Wilson's given up seeing the British ambassador, and it's true he's given up seeing the German ambassador. Oh, a long head, Wilson's! He corresponds with the accredited official representatives, and he sees the unofficial, the people he can learn from and the people he can indoctrinate. You'll be dealing with him less advantageously because of your mission, even though it's private. But"—Taylor got up to find a match. He paused to lay a hand on Napier's shoulder—"see Wilson soon."
It was already arranged, Taylor was told.
"Well, don't talk only munitions." Nobody better than the President, according to Taylor, knew that the old diplomacy was doomed. "This is the hour of the unofficial envoy."