She had not. Jeanie occupied all her waking thoughts.
He glanced down at the sheet he held. "There is going to be a bust-up on the Continent," he said, and there was that in his tone—a grim elation—which puzzled her at the moment. "The mightiest bust-up the world has ever known. We're in for it, Avery; in for the very deuce of a row." His voice vibrated suddenly. He stopped as though to check some headlong force that threatened to carry him away.
Avery stood still, feeling a sick horror of impending disaster at her heart. "What can you mean?" she said.
He leaned his hands upon the table facing her, and she saw in his eyes the primitive, savage joy of battle. "I mean war," he said. "Oh, it's horrible; yes, of course it's horrible. But it'll bring us to our senses. It'll make men of us yet."
She shrank from his look. "Piers! Not—not a European war!"
He straightened himself slowly. "Yes," he said. "It will be that. But there's nothing to be scared about. It'll be the salvation of the Empire."
"Piers!" she gasped again through white lips. "But modern warfare! Modern weapons! It's Germany of course?"
"Yes, Germany." He stretched up his arms with a wide gesture and let them fall. "Germany who is going to cut out all the rot of party politics and bind us together as one man! Germany who is going to avert civil war and teach us to love our neighbours! Nothing short of this would have saved us. We've been a mere horde of chattering monkeys lately. Now—all thanks to Germany!—we're going to be men!"
"Or murderers!" said Avery.
The word broke from her involuntarily, she scarcely knew that she had uttered it until she saw his face. Then in a flash she saw what she had done, for he had the sudden tragic look of a man who has received his death-wound.