And then instead of ordering me to report to him, instead of commanding me to tell him those things which I had been sent to tell him, this autocrat, this so-called man of iron, spoke to me as one man to another, almost as a friend speaks to a friend. I do not remember all that we spoke of in that half hour—the three years that have passed have brought me too much of experience for me to recall clearly more than the general tenor of our conversation. It is his manner that I remember most vividly, and the general impression of the scene. For as I stood before him then, it suddenly seemed to me that he spoke and looked as a man will who is confronted by a problem that for the moment has staggered him—not because of its immensity but because he sees now that he has always misunderstood it. Here, I thought, is a man, accustomed to facing all issues with grand words and a show of arrogance; and now at a time when oratory is of no avail, he finds himself still indomitable, perhaps, but a trifle lost, a trifle baffled, when he contemplates the work before him. For Wilhelm II had labored for years to prevent, or if that were impossible, to come victoriously through, the crisis which he knew must some day develop, and which he himself had at last precipitated. He had striven constantly to entrench Germany in a position that would command the world; and had sought to concentrate, so far as may be, the trouble spots of the world into one or two, to the end that Germany, when the time came, might extinguish them at a blow. But the time had come, and he knew that despite his efforts, there were not two but many issues that must be faced, and each one separately. He had striven with a sort of perverted altruism, to prepare the world for those things which he believed to be right and which, therefore, must prevail. And now after long years of preparation, of diplomatic intrigue with its record of nations bribed, threatened or cajoled into submission or alliance, he was faced with a condition which gave the lie to his expectations and he knew that “failure” must be written across the years. Russia, Japan, were for the moment lost; Italy was making ready to cast itself loose from that alliance which had been so insecurely founded upon distrust. And in America—who could tell? And yet, for all that I read weariness and bewilderment in his every tone, I could find in him no trace of hesitation or uncertainty. Instead, I knew that running through every fibre of the man there was an unquestioning assurance of victory—a victory that must come!