"I should. But suppose Germany should declare war before next August?"
"She won't. She ain't ready. She'd have done it after that there
'Agadir Incident' if she'd dared. That is to say been good and ready.
Now she's got to wait for another good excuse and there ain't one in
sight."
"But you believe she'd like to precipitate a war in Europe for her own purposes?"
"She'd like it all right." And he quoted freely from Treitschke and Bernhardi, while Alexina as ever looked at him in wonder. He seemed to be more deeply read every time she met him, and he remained exactly the same James Kirkpatrick. "What an adventitious thing breeding was! Mortimer had it!"
"Well, I am glad I spoke of it. You have relieved my mind, for you speak as one with authority…. There is something else I want to talk to you about…. A friend of mine is in a dilemma and I don't quite know how to advise her…. We're all such a silly set of moths—"
"No moth about you!" interrupted Mr. Kirkpatrick firmly. "Some of them—those others, if you like. The only redeeming virtue I can see in most of them is that they are what they are and don't give a damn. But you—you've got more brains and common sense than the whole bunch of women in this town put together."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I'm afraid I've addled my brains trying to cultivate them, and what I'm more afraid of is that I've addled my common sense." She spoke with such gayety, with such a roguish twinkle, and curve of lip, that neither then nor later did he suspect that she was the heroine of her own tale.
"Well, fire away. No, thanks, no more. I only drink tea to please you anyway. Tea is so much hot water to me."
"Well, smoke." She pushed the box of cigarettes toward him. "I know you smoke a pipe, but I won't let my husband smoke one at home. It's bad for my curtains…. This is it—One of my friends, poor thing, has had a terrible experience: discovered that her husband has stolen the part of her little fortune whose income enabled them to do something more than keep alive. You see, it's a sad case. She believed in him, and he had always been the most honest creature in the world; and that's as much of a blow as the loss of the money."
"What'd he do it for?"