“I understand,” said Farley. “If there were—”
“We’d probably be on opposite sides as usual. This is simply a case of not stirring up useless ill-feeling.”
“Quite right. And we’re much obliged to you. As long as The Guardian won’t touch it, you can rely on us.”
“I was sure I could.” The Senator turned and came face to face with the reporter. “Hello, Mr. Robson,” he said with his enveloping smile, and Jeremy went on feeling that the world was a more friendly place, for having encountered that expression of human good-will.
He descended into Fenchester’s main street. For the day, it might have been a foreign city. It was all aflutter with streamers inscribed “Wilkommen” followed by sundry German tags. German speech crossed German speech in the humming air. German faces, moist, heavy-hued, good-humored, were lifted to the insignia of the various Bunds, Vereins, Gesellschafts, and Kranzes, all pledged to the fostering and maintenance of a tenacious and irreconcilable foreign culture in the carelessly hospitable land which they had adopted as their own. Over streets, residences, stores, public buildings waved the banners of imperial Germany.
Far above it all, from the dome of the capitol, floated the Stars and Stripes. The flag represented a formality. It meant nothing in particular to anybody, except that the Legislature was then in session. Weaving in the languid air, it seemed remote, lonely, occluded from the jovial fellowship of the swarming Teuton colors. For the time, at least, it had been put aside from men’s minds. It was an alien in the land whose sons had died for it, and would again die for it in a day drawing inevitably nearer.
CHAPTER II
THE pippin of a story never ripened into print. Young Mr. Robson’s formal report of the meeting, a staid bit of journalism, appeared in full. But not a word of that brilliant pen-picture which he had so affectionately worked out. With a flaccid hope that there might have been a mistake somewhere, its author perused the columns of The Record a second time. Nothing! Perhaps, whispered hope, they had held it over. Being of the “sketch” order, it was good at any time. Daring greatly, he invaded the editorial sanctum where the proof-hooks hang. On the second he found his work of art. Upon the margin was rubber-stamped a single word: “Killed.”