“No.  We won’t,” she said, in a neutral tone which concealed perfectly her relief—­or her disappointment.  Then after a pause she added:  “It’s going to be a comic story.”

“Well------” he paused, too.  “Yes.  In a way.  In a very grim way.  It will
be human, and, as you know, comedy is but a matter of the visual angle. 
And it won’t be a noisy story.  All the long guns in it will be dumb—­as
dumb as so many telescopes.”

“Ah, there are guns in it, then!  And may I ask—­where?”

“Afloat.  You remember that the world of which we speak had its seas.  A war was going on in it.  It was a funny work! and terribly in earnest.  Its war was being carried on over the land, over the water, under the water, up in the air, and even under the ground.  And many young men in it, mostly in wardrooms and mess-rooms, used to say to each other—­pardon the unparliamentary word—­they used to say, ’It’s a damned bad war, but it’s better than no war at all.’  Sounds flippant, doesn’t it.”

He heard a nervous, impatient sigh in the depths of the couch while he went on without a pause.

“And yet there is more in it than meets the eye.  I mean more wisdom.  Flippancy, like comedy, is but a matter of visual first impression.  That world was not very wise.  But there was in it a certain amount of common working sagacity.  That, however, was mostly worked by the neutrals in diverse ways, public and private, which had to be watched; watched by acute minds and also by actual sharp eyes.  They had to be very sharp indeed, too, I assure you.”

“I can imagine,” she murmured, appreciatively.

“What is there that you can’t imagine?” he pronounced, soberly.  “You have the world in you.  But let us go back to our commanding officer, who, of course, commanded a ship of a sort.  My tales if often professional (as you remarked just now) have never been technical.  So I’ll just tell you that the ship was of a very ornamental sort once, with lots of grace and elegance and luxury about her.  Yes, once!  She was like a pretty woman who had suddenly put on a suit of sackcloth and stuck revolvers in her belt.  But she floated lightly, she moved nimbly, she was quite good enough.”

“That was the opinion of the commanding officer?” said the voice from the couch.

“It was.  He used to be sent out with her along certain coasts to see—­what he could see.  Just that.  And sometimes he had some preliminary information to help him, and sometimes he had not.  And it was all one, really.  It was about as useful as information trying to convey the locality and intentions of a cloud, of a phantom taking shape here and there and impossible to seize, would have been.

“It was in the early days of the war.  What at first used to amaze the commanding officer was the unchanged face of the waters, with its familiar expression, neither more friendly nor more hostile.  On fine days the sun strikes sparks upon the blue; here and there a peaceful smudge of smoke hangs in the distance, and it is impossible to believe that the familiar clear horizon traces the limit of one great circular ambush.