"We shall occupy the whole of the coast from Antwerp to Havre. The indemnity which France and Russia will pay us will make us the mightiest nation on earth. We shall play with England as a cat with a mouse, and when the time comes.... Well, perhaps that will do," the Prince concluded, smiling. Anna was silent for several moments. "I am a woman, you know," she said simply, "and this sounds, in a way, terrible. Yet for months I have felt it coming." "There is nothing terrible about it," the Prince replied, "if you keep the great principles of progress always before you. If a million or so of lives are sacrificed, the great Germany of the future, gathering under her wings the peoples of the world, will raise them to a pitch of culture and contentment and happiness which will more than atone for the sacrifices of to-day. It is, after all, the future to which we must look." A telephone bell rang at the Prince's elbow. He listened for a moment and nodded. "An urgent visitor demands a moment of my time," he said, rising. "I have taken already too much," Anna declared, "but I felt it was time that I heard the truth. They fence with me so in Berlin, and, believe me, Prince Herschfeld, in Vienna the Emperor is almost wholly ignorant of what is planned." The door was opened behind them. The Prince turned around. A young man had ushered in Herr Selingman. For a moment the latter looked steadily at Anna. Then he glanced at the Ambassador as though questioningly. "You two must have met," the Prince murmured. "We have met," Anna declared, smiling, as she made her way towards the door, "but we do not know one another. It is best like that. Herr Selingman and I work in the same army--" "But I, madame, am the sergeant," Selingman interrupted, with a low bow, "whilst you are upon the staff." She laughed as she made her adieux and departed. The door closed heavily behind her. Selingman came a little further into the room. "You have read your dispatches this morning, Prince?" he asked. "Not yet," the latter replied. "Is there news, then?" Selingman pointed to the closed door. "You have spoken for long with her?" "Naturally," the Prince assented. "She is a confidential friend of the Emperor. She has been entrusted for the last two years with all the private dispatches between Vienna and Berlin." "In your letters you will find news," Selingman declared. "She is pronounced suspect. She is under my care at this moment. A report was brought to me half an hour ago that she was here. I came on at once myself. I trust that I am in time?" The Prince stood quite silent for a moment. "Fortunately," he answered coolly, "I have told her nothing." CHAPTER XVIII