he brow. I suppose you
recognise that you are now the outstanding figure of the War and
consequently of the world? Such a figure always arises out of a great
upheaval, as history shows. His presence is necessary to the
readjustment of shattered things, I suppose--and he duly arrives. I take
you to stand, Paul, for spiritual survival. You are the chosen retort of
the White to the challenge of the Black, but I wonder if you have
perceived the real inwardness of your own explanation of the War?

"You show it to be an upcrop of that primitive Evil which legend has
embodied in the person of Lucifer. Has it occurred to you that the
insidious process of corruption which you have followed step by step
through the art, the music, the literature, the religion and the
sociology of Germany may have been directed by _someone_? If you are the
mouthpiece of the White, who is the mouthpiece of the Black? It is
difficult to visualise such a personality, of course. We cannot imagine
Pythagoras in his bath or even Shakespeare having his hair cut, and if
What's-his-name revisited earth to-morrow I don't suppose anybody would
know him. I often find it hard to realise that _you_, the old Paul with
the foul briar pipe and the threadbare Norfolk, really wrote _The
Gates_, not to mention _Francesca_. But you did, and I have been
wondering if the Other Fellow--the Field-Marshal of the Powers of
Darkness--is equally disappointing to look at--I mean, without halos,
or, in his case, blue fire. In short, I have been wondering if, meeting
him, one would recognise him? I have tried to imagine a sort of sinister
Whisperer standing at the elbows of Germany's philosophers, scientists,
artists and men of letters; one who was paving the way for a war that
should lay religion in ashes. And now, Paul, forgive me if I seem to
rave, but conditions here are not conducive to the production of really
good literature--I wonder if you will divine where this line of
reflection led me? The Whisperer, upon the ruins of the old creeds,
would try to uprear a new creed--his own. _You_ would be his obstacle.
Would he attack you openly, or would he remain--the Whisperer? To adopt
the delightful mediaeval language of the Salvation Army, watch for the
Devil at your elbow.... I wish I could get home, if only for a day, not
because I funk the crash which is coming at any moment now but because I
should like to see _The Key_ before, it goes to press...."

Paul read this strang