Sylvia said:
"We can't! We couldn't . . ."
"We've got to!" Tietjens said. "It's the condition of our existence. We're a practically bankrupt, over-populated, northern country: they're rich southerners, with a falling population. Towards 1930 we shall have to do what Prussia did in 1914. Our conditions will be exactly those of Prussia then. It's the . . . what is it called? . . ."
"But . . ." Sylvia cried out. "You're a Franco-maniac. . . . You're thought to be a French agent. . . . That's what's bitching your career!"
"I am?" Tietjens asked uninterestedly. He added: "Yes, that probably would bitch my career. . . ." He went on, with a little more animation and a little more of his mind:
"Ah! that will be a war worth seeing. . . . None of their drunken rat-fighting for imbecile boodlers . . ."
"It would drive mother mad!" Sylvia said.
"Oh, no it wouldn't," Tietjens said. "It will stimulate her if she is still alive. . . . Our heroes won't be drunk with wine and lechery: our squits won't stay at home and stab the heroes in the back. Our Minister for Water-closets won't keep two and a half million men in any base in order to get the votes of their women at a General Election—that's been the first evil effects of giving women the vote! With the French holding Ireland and stretching in a solid line from Bristol to Whitehall, we should hang the Minister before he had time to sign the papers. And we should be decently loyal to our Prussian allies and brothers. . . . Our Cabinet won't hate them as they hate the French for being frugal and strong in logic and well-educated and remorselessly practical. Prussians are the sort of fellows you can be hoggish with when you want to. . . ."
Sylvia interjected violently:
"For God's sake stop it. You almost make me believe what you say is true. I tell you mother would go mad. Her greatest friend is the Duchesse Tonnerre Châteaulherault. . . ."