I have always, since the day I first met him, liked and respected Ascher. When he spoke about his loneliness I felt a sudden wave of pity for him. It seems a strange thing to say, but at that moment I had a strong affection for the man.
“What I partly foresaw and greatly dreaded has come,” he said. “I am certain now that war is inevitable, a great war, almost perhaps in the end quite worldwide.”
“And England?” I said, “is England, too——?”
“Almost inevitably.”
“Germany?” I said.
Ascher nodded.
I was throbbing with excitement. For the moment I felt nothing but a sense of exultation, strangely out of harmony with the grave melancholy with which Ascher spoke. I suppose the soldier instinct survives in me, an inheritance from generations of my forefathers, all of whom have worn swords, many of whom have fought. We have done our part in building up the British Empire, we Irish gentlemen, fighting, as Virgil’s bees worked, ourselves in our own persons, but not for our own gain. There is surely not one battlefield of all where the flag of England has flown on which we have not led men, willing to fall at the head of them. It seems strange now, looking back on it, that such an emotion should have been possible; but at the moment I felt an overmastering sense of awful joy at Ascher’s news.
“I cannot tell you where I have been to-night,” said Ascher, “nor with whom I have been talking. Still less must I repeat what I have heard, but this much I think I may say. I was sent for to give my advice on certain matters connected with finance, to express an opinion about what will happen, what dangers threaten in that world, my world, the world of money.”
“There’ll be an infernal flurry on the Stock Exchange,” I said. “Prices will come tumbling down about men’s ears. Fellows will go smash in every direction.”
“There will be much more than that,” said Ascher. “The declaration of war will not simply mean the ruin of a few speculators here and there. You know enough about the modern system of credit to realise something of what we have to face. There will be a sudden paralysis of the nerves and muscles of the whole world-wide body of commercial and industrial life. The heart will stop beating for a short time—only for a short time I hope—and no blood will go through the veins and arteries.”