“And why is this the psychological moment? The Servian affair hardly seems worth all the pother----” “Do you remember a man named Humbert attacking the French War Minister in the Senate, about a fortnight ago, on the subject of their army,--no boots, no ammunition, no guns worth firing, no forts, and so on?” “I remember something about it. I remember it struck me as a rather foolish display of joints in the armour----” “And Petersburg was all upside down, the other day, with out-of-work riots. Crowds, one hundred thousand strong, slaughtering the police, even while Poincaré was visiting the Tsar. You remember that?” “Yes.” “And at home here, matters in Ireland looked like coming to a head. In fact it looked like civil war.” “I never believed it would come to anything of the kind, as you know.” “But to that exceedingly clever busy-body, the Kaiser,--at least, he thinks he’s exceedingly clever. It’s possible to be too clever.--Well, here were his three principal enemies all tied up in knots. What better chance would he ever get?” “H’m! All the same he seems doing his best to smooth things over.” “Bunkum, my boy!--all bunkum! He may try to save his face to the world at large, but I bet you they’re quietly mobilising over there as fast as they know how to, and that’s faster than we dream of. And the moment they’re ready they’ll burst out like a flood and sweep everything before them--unless we can dam it, damn ’em! Perhaps you’ll look in this evening and tell me how the City feels about it,” and at the door of the Bank they parted, and Mr Dare went on to his train in anything but a comfortable frame of mind. II They had been neighbours now for close on ten years and close friends for nine and a half of them. Noel and Honor were mischievous young things of eight when the Dares took The Red House, and in their adventurous prowlings they very soon made the acquaintance of Miss Victoria Luard, aged nine and also of an adventurous disposition, who lived at Oakdene, the big white house next door with black oak beams all over its forehead,--“like Brahmin marks only the other way,”--as Honor said, which gave it a surprised, wide-awake, lifted-eyebrows look. From the youngsters the acquaintance spread to the elder members of the two families, and grew speedily into very warm friendship, in spite of the fact that the Dares were all sturdy Liberals, and the Luards, as a family, staunch Conservatives. Colonel Luard, V.C., C.B.--Sir Anthony indeed, but he always insisted on the Colonel, since, as he said, “That was my own doing, sir, but the other--da-ash it!--I’d nothing to do with that. It was in the family and my turn came.”