'To throw back the world a hundred years….'
Gideon shrugged his shoulders. He belonged to no political party, and had the shrewd, far-seeing eyes of his father's race.
'It's going to be thrown back anyhow. Germany will see to that. And if we keep out of it, Germany will grab Europe. We've got to come in, if we can get a decent pretext.'
The decent pretext came in due course, and Gideon said, 'So that's that.'
He added to the Potters, 'For once I am in agreement with your father's press. We should be lunatics to stand out of this damnable mess.'
Juke also was now, painful to him though it was to be so, in agreement with the Potter press. To him the war had become a crusade, a fight for decency against savagery.
'It's that,' said Gideon. 'But that's not all. This isn't a show any country can afford to stand out of. It's Germany against Europe, and if Europe doesn't look sharp, Germany's going to win. Germany. Nearly as bad as Russia…. One would have to emigrate to another hemisphere…. No, we've got to win this racket…. But, oh, Lord, what a mess!' He fell to biting his nails, savage and silent.
Jane thought all the time, beneath her other thoughts about it, 'To have a war, just when life was beginning and going to be such fun.'
Beneath her public thoughts about the situation, she felt this deep private disgust gnawing always, as of one defrauded.