undingly
wrong. The fact of the great foreign peril--this nightmare, this
Armageddon of European war--may be exactly that which will pull us
together. But their diplomatists, anyhow, are studying the Irish
question very closely, and German gold, without any doubt at all, is
helping the Home Rule party. As a nation we are fast asleep. I wonder
what we shall be like when we wake. Shall we find ourselves already
fettered when we wake, or will there be one moment, just one moment, in
which we can spring up? At any rate, hitherto, the English have always
been at their best, not their worst, in desperate positions. They hate
exciting themselves, and refuse to do it until the crisis is actually on
them. But then they become disconcertingly serious and cool-headed."

"And you think the Emperor--" began Michael.

"I think the Emperor is the hardest worker in all Germany," said
Barbara. "I believe he is trying (and admirably succeeding) to make us
trust his professions of friendship. He has a great eye for detail, too;
it seemed to him worth while to assure you even, my dear Michael, of his
regard and affection for England. He was always impressing on Tony the
same thing, though to him, of course, he said that if there was any
country nearer to his heart than England it was America. Stuff and
nonsense, my dear!"

All this, though struck in a more serious key than was usual with Aunt
Barbara, was quite characteristic of her. She had the quality of mind
which when occupied with one idea is occupied with it to the exclusion
of all others; she worked at full power over anything she took up. But
now she dismissed it altogether.

"You see what a diplomatist I have become," she said. "It is a
fascinating business: one lives in an atmosphere that is charged with
secret affairs, and it infects one like the influenza. You catch it
somehow, and have a feverish cold of your own. And I am quite useful to
him. You see, I am such a chatterbox that people think I let out things
by accident, which I never do. I let out what I want to let out on
purpose, and they think they are pumping me. I had a long conversation
the other day with one of the German Embassy, all about Irish affairs.
They are hugely interested about Irish affairs, and I just make a note
of that; but they can make as many notes as they please about what
I say, and no one will be any the wiser. In fact, they will be the
foolisher. And now I suppose I had better take myself away