ole," he said. "The English people will
lose their tempers to a certainty, not at first perhaps, but as soon as
anything goes against them. When they do they'll make things damnably
unpleasant for any one who's suspected of being German or even remotely
connected with Germany. That's the sort of people the English are.
And Ascher is just the man they'll fasten on at once. They'll hunt him
down."

Mrs. Ascher looked at Gorman while he spoke. Her face expressed a quiet
dignity.

"That is not the difficulty," she said. "What people say or think of us
or do to us does not matter. We live our own lives. We can always live
them, apart from, above the bitter voices of the crowd."

"All the same," said Gorman, "it will be unpleasant It will be a great
deal worse than merely unpleasant. If I were Ascher I should get on the
safe side at once. I should give a thumping big subscription--L50,000
or something that will attract attention--to some popular fund. I should
offer to present the War Office with half a dozen aeroplanes to be
called 'The Ascher Flying Fleet'; or a first-rate cannon of the largest
size. A good deal can be done to shut people's mouths in that sort of
way."

"You do not understand," said Mrs. Ascher.

She turned to me, evidently hoping that I would explain Ascher's real
difficulty to Gorman. I hesitated for a moment. It was plain to me that
though Gorman did not appreciate the reality of the spiritual crisis, he
did understand something which had escaped me and, so far as I knew,
had escaped Ascher also. I had a vivid recollection of the unenviable
position of men suspected of lukewarm patriotism during the Boer War.
In the struggle we were then entering upon popular passion would be far
more highly excited. The position of the Aschers in England might become
impossible.

Gorman with his highly developed faculty for gauging the force and
direction of popular opinion understood at once and thoroughly the
difficulties that lay before Ascher. What he did not understand was
the peculiar difficulty which Ascher felt. I responded to Mrs. Ascher's
glance of appeal and tried to explain things to Gorman.

"Ascher," I said, "is pulled two ways. His country is pulling him.
That's the call of patriotism. You ought to understand that, Gorman.
You're a tremendous patriot yourself. But if he goes back to his country
now he absolutely ruins his business. That means a lot more than merely
losing his money. It means more