“You mean the war?”
“There's nothing else in the world, is there?”
“One wouldn't have thought so from the conversation here to-night.”
Clayton Spencer glanced about the table. Rodney Page, the architect, was telling a story clearly not for the ears of the clergy, and his own son, Graham, forced in at the last moment to fill a vacancy, was sitting alone, bored and rather sulky, and sipping his third cognac.
“If you want my opinion, things are bad.”
“For the Allies? Or for us?”
“Good heavens, man, it's the same thing. It is only the Allies who are standing between us and trouble now. The French are just holding their own. The British are fighting hard, but they're fighting at home too. We can't sit by for long. We're bound to be involved.”
The rector lighted an excellent cigar.
“Even if we are,” he said, hopefully, “I understand our part of it will be purely naval. And I believe our navy will give an excellent account of itself.”
“Probably,” Clay retorted. “If it had anything to fight! But with the German fleet bottled up, and the inadvisability of attempting to bombard Berlin from the sea—”