Her husband smiled.
"If you consider for a moment, it would not be so difficult as it first appears. It requires but a spark to set the fire burning. There is at least one party in France to whom war would mean the achievement of all their most cherished dreams. It is long odds that a war would bring some M. Quelquechose to the front with a rush. He will be at least untried. And, of late years, it is the untried men who have the people's confidence in France. A few resolute men, my dear Mrs. Macmathers, have only to kick up a shindy on the Alsatian borders--Europe will be roused, in the middle of the night, by the roaring of the flames of war."
There was a pause. Mrs. Macmathers got up and began to pace the room.
"It's a big order," she said.
"Allowing the feasibility of your proposition, I conclude that you have some observations to make upon it from a moral point of view. It requires them, my friend."
Mr. Macmathers said this with a certain dryness.
"Moral point of view be hanged! It could be argued, mind, and defended; but I prefer to say candidly, the moral point of view be hanged!"
"Has it not occurred to you to think that the next Franco-German war may mean the annihilation of one of the parties concerned?"
"You mistake the position. I should have nothing to do with the war. I should merely arrange the date for its commencement. With or without me they would fight."
"You would merely consign two or three hundred thousand men to die at the moment which would best suit your pocket."