s brilliant.
Nigel had Maggie for a partner, and Chalmers one of her friends, and the
set was as nearly equal as possible. Naida leaned forward in her chair,
following every stroke with interest.

"I find this most fascinating," she murmured. "I hope that Lord
Dorminster and his cousin will win. Your sympathies, of course, are on
the other side."

"You are right," Immelan assented. "My sympathies are on the other
side."

There was a lull in the game for a moment or two. The sun was
troublesome, and the players were changing courts. Naida turned towards
her companion thoughtfully.

"My friend," she said, glancing around as though to be sure that they
were not overheard, "there are times when you move me to wonder. In the
small things as well as the large, you are so unchanging. I think that
you would see an Englishman die, whether he were your friend or your
enemy, very much as you kick a poisonous snake out of your path."

"It is quite true," was the calm reply.

"But America was once your enemy," she continued, watching Chalmers'
powerful service.

"With America we made peace," he explained. "With England, never. If you
would really appreciate and understand the reason for that undying
hatred which I and millions of my fellow countrymen feel, it will cost
you exactly one shilling. Go to any stationer's and buy a copy of the
Treaty of Versailles. Read it word by word and line by line. It is the
most brutal document that was ever printed. It will help you to
understand."

She nodded slowly.

"Paul always declared," she said, "that in those days England had no
statesmen--no one who could feel what lay beyond the day-by-day
horizon. When I think of that Treaty, my friend, I sympathise with you.
It is not a great thing to forge chains of hate for a beaten enemy."

"If you realise this, are you not then our friend?" Immelan asked.

She appeared for a few moments to be engrossed in the tennis. Her
companion, however, waited for her answer.

"In a way," she acknowledged, "I find something magnificent in your
wonderfully conceived plans for vengeance, and in the spirit which has
evolved and kept them alive through all these years. Then, on the other
hand, I look at home, and I ask myself whether you do not make what they
would call over here a cat's-paw of my country."

"Ours is the most natural and most beneficial of all possible
alliances," Immelan insisted. "Germany and Russia, hand in hand, can
dominate th