“He meant to warn me,” said Ascher, “that what I have always looked forward to with horror and dread is imminent—a great war. You remember a talk we had long ago in New York; the night we were at the circus and saw the trapeze swingers. Well, if my nephew is right, the whole delicate balance of that performance is going to be upset. There will be a crash, inevitably.”
“And you?”
Ascher smiled faintly.
“For me as well as for the others,” he said. “The fact that my affairs are greater than those of most men will only make my fall the worse.”
“But you have been warned in time.”
“I scarcely needed the warning. I was aware of the danger. My nephew only told me what I knew. His warning, coming from him, an officer who stands high in the German military service—it confirms my fears, no more.”
“But you can save yourself and your business,” I said. “Knowing what is before you, you can—you need not lend money, accept obligations. You can gradually draw out of the stream of credit in which your fortune is involved, get into a backwater for a while. You have time enough. I am expressing myself all wrong; but you know what I mean.”
“I know. And you think I ought to do that?”
“There is no ‘ought’ about it,” I said. “It is the natural thing to do.”
“You were a soldier once. I think you told me so.”