All through March events had developed rapidly. On the first day of that month the government had revealed Germany’s attempt to stir up Mexico and Japan against the United States. A few days later Germany herself had admitted the instigation. A few days later still Austria had given her approval to unlimited submarine warfare. A few days later still Nicholas was deposed in Petrograd. The country was marching; the world was marching; the heart was marching. It was difficult for the mind to keep up with the immensity of such happenings or to appraise them at their value. I do not assert that I so appraised them; I only beg you to understand that what I wanted and Cantyre wanted and Regina wanted, each of us for himself and herself, became curiously insignificant. Not that we were working with the same ends in view. By no means! Cantyre was still opposed to war as war, and bitterly opposed to war if it involved the United States. That he was kicking against the pricks, as Regina asserted, I couldn’t see; but that he was feeling the whole situation intensely was quite evident. The result, however, was the same when it came to balancing personal interests against the public weal. The public weal might mean one thing to him and another thing to me, but to us both it overrode private resentment. There was a moratorium of resentment. We might revive it again; but for the moment it vanished out of sight. _CHAPTER XXXI_ So we came to that determining moment when we held our famous patriotic meeting at the Down and Out. I call it famous because it was a new point of departure. In all the club’s history there had never been a meeting for any other purpose than to screw the courage up to the cutting out of drink. Other subjects had been suggested from time to time; but we had stuck to our last as specialists. We had not been turned aside for philanthropy, for education, for financial benefit, or even for religion in the commonly accepted meaning of that word; and the results had been our justification. But now the flame at the heart of the earth had caught us, and we were all afire. I mean that we were afire with interest, though the interest was against war as well as for it. But for it or against it, it was the one theme of our discussion; and with cause. The tide was rising higher, and the spirit of the nation floating on the top. On one of the first days of April the President had asked Congress to declare a state of war with the German Empire. Two days later the Senate voted that declaration. A few nights after that we got together to talk things over at the Down and Out.