“I suppose it’s a matter of opinion how far any one’s justified in interfering with other people’s business. But, as that seems to be the serious occupation of your life, you can’t be too thorough. I recognized that then, you remember; I begged you to drop in at cocktail-time whenever your feelings were too much for you. I suppose you’ve been too busy to come.”
“No. I felt that, whether it was my business or not, you at least had dropped out of it.”
Gaymer removed his cigar and stared dully at the glowing end.
“Well, you seem to have been very busy with my name behind my back,” he said.
“I’m not aware of it.”
“Oh? It was an impression I got.”
“Can you remind me what I said?,” asked Eric.
“I haven’t the least idea. You seem to have been doing very efficient propaganda against me. Weren’t you in the Propaganda Department at one time?”
“Yes. And my experience there was that the propaganda which you carry out against a nation never compares with the propaganda which a nation carries out against itself. One good Lusitania outrage was worth months of our solemn generalizations; that shewed the world what the Germans really were.”
Gaymer yawned openly: