"Well rehearsed," remarked Franz dryly.
"Oh, if you want to be rude——"
"I do," said Franz, taking hold of her wrist; "I am sick of all this lying palaver about good coming out of evil, and I want you to be sick of it too, Bertha."
The Krupp heiress leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "At the American Embassy I heard rather a quaint saying day before yesterday: 'Go as far as you like.'
"A most apt saying," admitted Franz. "Thank you for the licence. As I was going to point out, you did attach too little significance to Zara's words, thought them mere piffle of the kind for sale in necromancers' tents. There is enough of that, God knows, but do not lose sight of the fact that at all times and in all walks of life there have existed persons having the gift of prophecy. Who knows but Zara has?"
Bertha was now rigid with attention. She had moved knee from knee; her feet were set firmly on the carpet, while the upper part of her body straightened out. "I don't follow," she said almost pleadingly.
"Let me explain," continued Franz. "You and I and the vast majority of people can look into the past—a certain curvature of our brain facilitating the privilege. Another similar or dissimilar set of brain-cells, or a single curvature, might lift for us the veil that now obscures the future."
"The future?" gasped Bertha.
"Indeed, the future; and, practically considered, there is nothing so very extraordinary about it, for what will happen to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow, is in the making now. If, for instance, the Krupp works were going into bankruptcy a year hence, the unfavourable conditions that constitute the menace to our prosperity would be at their destructive work now. Do you follow?" added Franz.
"I think I do," said Bertha.