“And yet you defend him?”
Edmond Valentin shrugged his shoulder.
“An advocate is forced to serve whichever side engages him,” he replied. “That is why the profession of arms is so much more honest.”
“Granted,” his companion said. “It gives you an entrée to the better houses—you can become a member of the Cercle Militaire, and all that, but is it not all useless? The war, which has been predicted all these years, has never come—nor, in my belief, will it ever come. Germany only raises a bogey from time to time, in order to terrify Europe, as my father puts it,” the girl added.
“Ah! I fear the Baron is a little too optimistic,” replied her lover. “War, when it comes—as it most assuredly will—will come in the hour when we least expect it. Then, when the Teuton hordes burst their bonds, woe-betide the nations they attack.”
“Well, Edmond, we have one consolation, that they will never attack us. We are neutral, and the Powers—even Germany herself—have agreed to respect our neutrality.”
“Ah, Aimée, that remains to be seen,” was his slow, apprehensive reply. “Germany, when she fights, will fight for world-wide power, irrespective of treaties or of agreements. The Kaiser is the great War Lord, and his intention is to vindicate his self-assumed title, and to rule the world.”
“Father, who is behind the scenes of international politics, quite disputes that view.”
“The Baron will not admit it—nobody in Belgium will admit it—because no cloud appears to-day upon the political horizon. But the dark cloud will arise ere long, depend upon it, and then we shall, every man of us, be compelled to fight for our lives, and for all we hold most dear.”
A silence fell between them. The young man slowly stirred his coffee, and then, taking a cigarette from his case, lit it, with a word of apology at having expressed such words of warning, and daring to disagree with the view held by the Baron de Neuville.