all, the enduring beauty of this world.

THE FOURTH CHAPTER

1

Gilbert looked up from the paper as Henry came out of the hotel.

"I say, Quinny," he said, "I think there's going to be a war!"

"A what?" Henry exclaimed.

"A war!..."

"But where?"

Henry sat down on the long seat beside Gilbert, and looked over his
shoulder at the paper.

"All over the place!" Gilbert answered. "The Austrians want to have a go
at the Serbians, and the Russians mean to have one at the Austrians, and
then the Germans will have to help the Austrians, and that'll bring the
French in, and ... and then I suppose we shall shove in some where!"

Henry took the paper from Gilbert's hands. "But what have we got to do
with it?" he said, hastily scanning the telegrams with which the news
columns were filled.

"I dunno!..."

"It's ridiculous.... What's there to fight about? Damn it all, my
novel's coming out in a month! What's it about?"

"You remember that Archduke chap who got blown up the other day?..."

"Yes, I remember!"

"Well, that's what it's about!"

"But, good God, man, they can't have a war about a thing like that...."

"It looks as if they thought they could. Anyhow, they're going to try!"
said Gilbert.

"Just because an Archduke got killed? Damn it, Gilbert, that's what
they're for!..."

There was a queer look of fright in the faces of the visitors to the
hotel. The boy from Holyhead had been slow in coming with the papers,
and the first news that came to them came from a man who had been into
the town that morning.

"There's going to be a war," he had shouted to the group of people
sitting on the terrace.

"Don't be an ass!" they had shouted back at him.

"Yes, there is. The whole blooming world'll be scrapping presently!" He
spoke with the queer gaiety of a man who has abandoned all hope. "Just
as I was getting on my feet, too!" he went on. He suddenly unburdened
himself to a man who had only arrived at the hotel late on the previous
evening ... they had never seen each other before ... but now they were
revealing intimacies....

"Just getting on my feet," the man who had brought the news went on.

"It'll be very bad for business, I'm afraid!..."

"Bad. Goo' Lor', man, it's ruin ... absolute ruin! I'll be up the pole,
that's where I'll be. And I was thinking of getting married, too. Just
thinking of it, you know ... nothing settled or anything ... and now ...
damn it, what they want to go and