“I don’t suppose,” Lutchester continued,
as they strolled across the lawn, “that you
have very much influence with your uncle, or that he
would listen very much to anything that you have to
say, but if he is really in earnest about this thing,
he is going to play a terribly dangerous game.
As things are at present, he has a very pleasant and
responsible position as the supporter and friend of
very able men. With regard to this new movement,
he may find the whole ground crumble away beneath
his feet. Fischer is playing the game of a madman.
It isn’t only political defeat that might come
to him, but disgrace—even dishonour.”
“You frighten me,” Pamela confessed gravely.
Lutchester sighed.
“Your uncle,” he went on, “is one
of those thoroughly conceited, egotistical men who
will probably listen to no one. You see, I have
found out a little about him already. But they
tell me that her social position means a great deal
to your aunt. Neither her birth nor her friends
could save her if Fischer drags your uncle to his chariot
wheels.”
“Do you think, perhaps, that you underestimate
Mr. Fischer’s position over here?” she
asked thoughtfully.
“I don’t think I do,” he replied,
“but here is something which you have scarcely
appreciated. Fischer has had the effrontery to
link himself up with a little crowd of Germans all
through the States, who are making organised attempts
to destroy the factories where ammunitions are being
made for the Allies. That sort of thing, you know,
would bring any one, however, distantly connected
with it, to Sing Sing.... One moment,” he
added quickly, as Mrs. Hastings stepped forward to
meet them; “the reception at the British Embassy
to-night?”
“The others are going,” she said.
“My aunt didn’t feel she was sufficiently—”
“We sent you a card round especially this afternoon,”
Lutchester interrupted. “You’ll come?”
“How nice of you! Of course I will,”
she promised.
“Small affair, this,” Downing observed,
as he piloted Lutchester through the stately reception
rooms of the Embassy. “You see, we are
all living a sort of touchy life here, nowadays.
We try to be civil to any of the German or Austrian
lot when we meet, but of course they don’t come
to our functions. And every now and then some
of those plaguey neutrals get the needle and they
don’t come, so we never know quite where we
are, Guadopolis has been avoiding us lately, and I
hear he was seen out at the Lakewood Country Club
with Count Reszka, the Rumanian Minister, a few days
ago. Gave the Chief quite a little flurry, that
did.”
“There’s an idea over in London,”
Lutchester remarked, “that a good deal of the
war is being shaped in Washington nowadays.”
“That is the Chief’s notion,” Downing
assented. “I know he’s pining to
talk to you, so we’ll go and do the dutiful.”
