"I want to believe that you are glad," she answered. "I have been restless ever since you left. Tell me at once, what did they say to you here?" "I am practically shelved," he told her bitterly. "In twelve months' time, perhaps, I may be offered something in America or Asia--countries where diplomacy languishes. In a word, your mighty autocrat has spoken the word, and I am sacrificed." She moved towards the window. "I am stifled!" she exclaimed. "Open it wide, please." He threw it open. They looked out eastwards. The roar of the night was passing. Here and there were great black spaces. On the Thames a sky-sign or two remained. The blue, opalescent glare from the Gaiety dome still shone. The curving lights which spanned the bridges and fringed the Embankment still glittered. The air, even here, high up as they were on the seventh story of the building, seemed heavy and lifeless. "There is a storm coming," she said. "I have felt it for days." She stood looking out, pale, her large eyes strained as though seeking to read something which eluded her in the clouds or the shadows which hung over the city. She had rather the air of a frightened but eager child. She rested her fingers upon his arm, not exactly affectionately, but as though she felt the need of some protection. "Do you know," she whispered, "the feeling of this storm has been in my heart for days. I am afraid--afraid for all of us!" "Afraid of what?" he asked gently. "Afraid," she went on, "because it seems to me that I can hear, at times like this, when one is alone, the sound of what one of your writers called footsteps amongst the hills, footsteps falling upon wool, muffled yet somehow ominous. There is trouble coming. I know it. I am sure of it." "In this country they do not think so," he reminded her. "Most of our great statesmen of today have come to the conclusion that there will be no more war." "You have no great statesmen," she answered simply. "You have plenty of men who would make very fine local administrators, but you have no statesmen, or you would have provided for what is coming." There was a curious conviction in her words, a sense of one speaking who has seen the truth. "Tell me," he asked, "is there anything that you know of--" "Ah! but that I may not tell you," she interrupted, turning away from the window. "Of myself just now I say nothing--only of you. I am here for a day or two. It is through me that you have suffered this humiliation. I wanted to know just how far it went. Is there anything I can do?" "What could any one do?" he asked. "I am the victim of circumstances." "But for a whole year!" she exclaimed. "You are not like so many young Englishmen. You do not wish to spend your time playing polo and golf, and shooting. You must do something. What are you going to do with that year?" He moved across the room and took a cigarette from a box. "Give me something to drink, please," she begged.