The continental journey had lasted a month. He had visited more countries than one in his pursuit of a study he was making of the way in which the wind was blowing particular straws. For long he had found much to give thought to in the trend of movement in one special portion of the Chessboard. It was that portion of it dominated by the ruler of whose obsession too careless nations made sly jest. This man he had known from his arrogant and unendearing youth. He had looked on with unbiassed curiosity at his development into arrogance so much greater that its proportions touched the grotesque. The rest of the world had looked on also, but apparently, merely in the casual way which good-naturedly smiles and leaves to every man—even an emperor—the privilege of his own eccentricities. Coombe had looked on with a difference, so also had his friend by her fireside. This man’s square of the Chessboard had long been the subject of their private talks and a cause for the drawing towards them of the green atlas. The moves he made, the methods of his ruling, the significance of these methods were the evidence they collected in their frequent arguments. Coombe had early begun to see the whole thing as a process—a life-long labour which was a means to a monstrous end. There was a certain thing he believed of which they often spoke as “It”. He spoke of it now. “Through three weeks I have been marking how It grows,” he said; “a whole nation with the entire power of its commerce, its education, its science, its religion, guided towards one aim is a curious study. The very babes are born and bred and taught only that one thought may become an integral part of their being. The most innocent and blue eyed of them knows, without a shadow of doubt, that the world has but one reason for existence—that it may be conquered and ravaged by the country that gave them birth.” “I have both heard and seen it,” she said. “One has smiled in spite of oneself, in listening to their simple, everyday talk.” “In little schools—in large ones—in little churches, and in imposing ones, their Faith is taught and preached,” Coombe answered. “Sometimes one cannot believe one’s hearing. It is all so ingenuously and frankly unashamed—the mouthing, boasting, and threats of their piety. There exists for them no God who is not the modest henchman of their emperor, and whose attention is not rivetted on their prowess with admiration and awe. Apparently, they are His business, and He is well paid by being allowed to retain their confidence.” “A lack of any sense of humour is a disastrous thing,” commented the Duchess. “The people of other nations may be fools—doubtless we all are—but there is no other which proclaims the fact abroad with such guileless outbursts of raucous exultation.” “And even we—you and I who have thought more than others” he said, restlessly, “even we forget and half smile. There has been too much smiling.”