“England gone, France gone, Italy gone––who shall safe America and her armies and her unborn ships, and her cannon and shell and air-ships not yet so much as begun?
“Der Tag shall be like the lest day ven Gott makes the graves open and the dead come beck to life. The Americans shall fall on knees before our Kaiser, and he shall render chudgment. Such a payink!
“Now the Yenkees despise us Chermans. Ve cannot go to this city, to that dock. Everywhere is dead-lines and permissions and internment camps and persecutions, and all who are not in prison are afraid. They change their names from Cherman to English now, but soon they shall lift their heads and it shall be the Americans who shall know the dead-lines, the licenses, the internment camps.
“So, Marie Louise, my sveetheart, if you can show and I can show that in the dark night ve did not forget the Vaterland, ve shall be proud and safe.
“It is to make you safe ven comes Der Tag I speak to you now. I vish you should share my vork now, so you 276 can share my life efterwards. Now do I loaf you, Marie Louise? Now do I give you proof?”
Mamise was all ashudder with the intensity of his conviction. She imagined an all-conquering Germany in America. She needed but to multiply the story of Belgium, of Serbia, of prostrate Russia. The Kaiser had put in the shop-window of the world samples enough of the future as it would be made by Germany.
And in the mood of that day, with defeatism rife in Europe, and pessimism miasmatic in America, there was reason enough for Nicky to believe in his prophecy and to inspire belief in its possibility. The only impossible thing about it was that the world should ever endure the dominance of Germany. Death would seem better to almost everybody than life in such a civilization as she promised.
Mamise feared the Teutonic might, but she could not for a moment consent to accept it. There was only one thing for her to do, and that was to learn what plans she could, and thwart them. Here within her grasp was the long-sought opportunity to pay off the debt she had incurred. She could be a soldier now, at last. There was no price that Nicky might have demanded too great, too costly, too shameful for her to pay. To denounce him or defy him would be a criminal waste of opportunity.
She said: “I understand. You are right, of course. Let me help in any way I can. I only wish there were something big for me to do.”
Nicky was overjoyed. He had triumphed both as patriot and as lover.