The uproarious little dinner party at the Villa Miranda drew to a close. Lord Yeovil rose to his feet and laid his hand on Grant’s shoulder.

“My young friend,” he said, “let us leave this scene of debauchery for a few minutes. You and I will take our coffee together in my den. Thank heavens, none of my colleagues or any members of our new Yellow Press were present here tonight. You were the only silent person, Arthur,” he added, pausing on his way to the door. “You look as though you had seen a vision.”

The young man, whose silence had indeed been noticeable, looked up.

“I have,” he admitted.

“Arthur has fallen in love with a beautiful stranger,” Susan called out. “Something must be done about it. Now that we’ve sent Bobby to Coventry we can’t really spare Arthur. Dad, isn’t it one of the duties of a Prime Minister’s private secretary to flirt with his daughter when she feels so disposed?”

“Certainly,” Lord Yeovil agreed.

“It is also,” Grant reminded her, with a slight smile, “part of the duties of a Prime Minister’s daughter to see that his secretary doesn’t fall under the influence of fascinating but mysterious strangers.”

“That settles your hash, young man,” Susan declared, across the table. “You stick to me to-night.”

“I think I’ll resign,” Arthur announced. “These conferences are a great strain on my nervous system as it is.”

“Wouldn’t you be scared if Dad took you at your word!” Susan observed, reaching over the table for the cigarettes, “You’d never get another job.”

“You’re all very rude to me,” Arthur complained, with a show of dignity. “I am considered in political circles to be a young man of much promise. The Daily Sun said so last week.”

There was a chorus of derision, in the midst of which Grant and his host made their way to a small sitting room at the back of the house. Coffee and liqueurs were upon the sideboard, and upon the table was a copy of the Field and two packs of cards.

“Now, my young friend,” Lord Yeovil invited, “help yourself to anything you fancy, and there upon the table you will find a highly interesting bridge problem—by way of bluff. Only, whatever we may have to say to one another, let us get it over quickly. The great thing is not to keep Susan waiting. She doesn’t understand the interference of international history with her amusements! First of all, have you anything fresh to report?”

“Nothing very definite, sir,” Grant acknowledged. “But, in a sense, my cruise to Archangel was a success.”

“You mean that you were right in your suspicions?”

“I obtained a good deal of evidence in support of it, evidence which is now in the hands of the British Admiralty. I was at Archangel for a fortnight and I had letters of introduction to two of the Russian admirals. I spent a lot of time on their ships. They were almost as hospitable as the sailors of the old regime.”

“Tried to drink you under the table and that sort of thing, I suppose.”

Grant smiled.

“I survived the ordeal, but I am afraid that my liver is temporarily deranged,” he admitted. “I obtained a lot of quite useful information. Personally I am absolutely convinced now that the Russian fleet has never been trained or adjusted to form a separate unit. It is intended to act in conjunction with the German fleet in some unknown enterprise. A number of the engineers and gunners are Germans and there is a distinct atmosphere of German discipline about the whole outfit. In addition, as I dare say you’ve heard, they’re all armed with German guns. Of course, even a non-expert can easily understand,” he went on, after a brief pause, during which he accepted and lit a cigar which his host had silently passed him, “that two nations like Germany and Russia might easily keep within the tonnage allowed them by the Washington Conference, and yet, if each concentrated upon a particular sort of armament, they would, when brought together, be a more formidable fighting unit than the united forces of any two countries who had each spread out their tonnage to make an individual unit.”

“You think that is the basis of this understanding between Germany and Russia?” Lord Yeovil asked.

“I am convinced of it,” Grant replied. “Internal evidence was more difficult to get than external, but I have obtained a certain amount of proof that, contrary to the provisions of the Pact, there exists a secret naval understanding between Germany and Russia. Fortunately for us and for every one it is Great Britain’s turn this year to police the seas, so I have made an exhaustive report to your Admiralty. I’m pretty certain that there’ll be British warships in the Baltic before many weeks are past.”

“You didn’t come back in the yacht?”

Grant shook his head.

“I came back overland, sir. I spent four days in Berlin,—my second visit as a traveller from the Bethlehem Steel Company.”

“Pick up anything?”

“Not much,” was the grim acknowledgement. “They’re pretty close-lipped in Berlin just now, and I had to be careful. I came away, however, with the absolute conviction that there is something in the air. There is what we used to call ‘cyclonic disturbance’ about, and the trail led here. You probably know more about it than I do.”

“That ‘cyclonic disturbance’ is brewing, all right,” the other assented. “We’re in the thick of it at Nice. The day before yesterday we came almost to a deadlock over a question which Lutrecht persisted in raising and which we discussed for hours. I am going to treat you with a great deal of confidence, as I always have done. Grant. Years ago, when you were First Secretary at your Embassy in London, and I was Foreign Minister, I discovered that you shared one conviction which has been at the root of the whole of my policy from the moment I entered the Cabinet. That conviction is that the interests of Great Britain and the United States of America are inextricably and inevitably identical. I shan’t dilate. There it is in plain words, the text of my political life, and because I know that you share it, I have treated you with a confidence I have not extended even to one of my own countrymen. I am now going beyond the limits of official propriety. I am going to tell you what the trouble has been at the last two meetings of the Pact. It has been this: Lutrecht, apparently out of a clear sky, has enunciated this principle and claims the confirmation of the Pact; that, whereas every nation of the Pact stands together against aggression by any member of it against another member, there is nothing in its constitution to prevent two members of the Pact arriving at a separate and individual understanding as regards proceedings directed against any nation not a member of the Pact. Do you follow me, Grant?”

“To the bitter end,” was Grant’s reply. “The thing’s as plain as a pikestaff. I have felt this coming for years. We are close on the trouble now.”

“Well,” Lord Yeovil continued, “I suspended proceedings for twenty-four hours to obtain the opinion of some international jurists. I shall delay them for another twenty-four hours until after to-morrow’s meeting.”

Grant leaned a little forward in his chair. It was obvious that he was deeply moved.

“I can’t tell you, sir, how much I appreciate your confidence,” he said, “and honestly I think the fact that you have been willing to give it to me has been and will be helpful to the peace of the world. And now I am going to ask you something else. You are postponing the consideration of Prince Lutrecht’s arguments until after to-morrow, as you admit, with a purpose. Is that purpose your intention to propose to the Conference that the United States be once more invited to join the Pact?”

The Prime Minister eyed his vis-a-vis, for a moment, with inscrutable countenance. He was no longer the indulgent father of a tomboy daughter or the genial host of a young people’s party. He looked every inch of him the great statesman he really was.

“Where did you get that from. Grant?” he demanded.

“You know my position, sir,” the young man replied earnestly.

“I am the one foreign Secret Service agent my country can claim. Even then, I’m not official. I have money to spend and I spend it. I have sources of information and I use them. I have friends in Washington, too, with whom I am in touch hour by hour. This is not a question of betrayal; it is more divination. They expect that invitation on the other side, sir. And the best of them hope for it. Will it be forthcoming?”

Lord Yeovil considered for a full minute. Then he knocked the ash from his cigar.

“Well,” he admitted, “you’ve seen your way to the truth, Grant. I’m going to risk it. It’s a big thing so far as I am concerned. If, by any chance, the Conference opposes me, my resignation will be inevitable. If, by any chance, I get the thing through, and Washington refuses, I shall be the most discredited politician who ever placed his country in a humiliating position.”

“I don’t think the United States will refuse,” Grant declared. “It is most unfortunate that the matter will have to go to the Senate and be publicly discussed because, of course, as you know, there are always malignant influences in a polyglot country like ours. But I know the feeling of the people who count. They want to come in like hell.”

“I expect you’ve been supplying them with a little information,” Lord Yeovil observed.

Grant nodded.

“I never leave them alone,” he admitted. “To a certain extent I’m afraid they look upon me as an alarmist for the simple reason that there is scarcely a single citizen of the United States who doesn’t believe absolutely in the impregnability of his country. However, I think I’ve stirred them up a little in Washington, and there’s more to be done in that way, yet. Do you feel inclined to tell me, sir, what would be the prospect of the voting if you bring forward your motion to-morrow?”

“They appear to me to be in our favour,” was the deliberate reply. “When the Pact was first formed any invitation to join it had to be unanimous. Lately, however, that has been modified. Unless there are four dissentients now, any nation proposed, becomes, if willing to join, ‘ipso facto’ a member of the Pact. I can conceive two; it might be possible to conceive three dissentients. I can put my finger upon no possible fourth.”

“I see,” Grant murmured. “By the bye was Baron Naga at Nice yesterday?”

“He was.”

“Do you know if he has received any dispatches from home since the last sitting.”

Lord Yeovil considered for a moment.

“He must have,” he acknowledged, “because he was able to give us a very crude description of these flying boats of theirs, which the Italians are so curious about. He had no information at all two days ago when the matter came up.”

“I’d give in the neighbourhood of a million dollars to see that dispatch,” Grant declared.

There was still a great deal of noise in the dining room and in the passage. Lord Yeovil walked to the door and locked it. Then he came back to his place. He spoke slowly and with the air of one choosing his words.

“Slattery,” he said, “it has been in my mind for two years to propose a further invitation to your country to join the Pact, because, in my opinion, conditions during the last decade have entirely altered, and the position of your country outside the Pact, even though she may be considered the greatest power in the world, has become anomalous and dangerous. She has subscribed to the Limitation of Armaments, which she herself inaugurated, and has scrupulously carried out her obligations. With all her power and wealth she is unable to launch a single battleship or put under arms a single regiment of soldiers beyond the proportion allotted to her by the other subscribing powers. Yet, although she is in this position, she is not a member of the Pact. That is to say, that, legally speaking, any two or three nations who do belong to the Pact might attack America with superior forces and the other members of the Pact would be powerless.”

“You have placed the matter in a nutshell, sir,” Grant agreed. “It was the consideration of these things which brought me to Europe and keeps me employed here. America, when the great call came, rose magnificently to her opportunities. She stretched across to Europe, and though, indeed, others bore the brunt of the burden, she ended the war of nineteen-fourteen. Since then, without a doubt, she has had a political relapse. Her statesmen have lost a certain measure of insight and vision. She has sunk back into the parochial. Politics have become more than ever a game and a profession. Her statesmen are so busy fighting over their own national problems that they have never envisaged the danger upon the horizon. That has been my view. It is my view to-day.”

“Go on,” Lord Yeovil invited. “You have not been in Europe during these last twelve months for nothing.”

“I am convinced,” Grant declared, “that Germany and Japan have arrived at an understanding to strike at America. I am convinced for that reason that they will oppose your invitation to America to-morrow. If they do not and I have wasted my time, then God be thanked for it. I shall go back to polo and golf, hunt the hounds at Pau, and never take myself seriously again.”

The older man helped himself to a cigarette and tapped it thoughtfully upon the table without lighting it.

“There is just one thing, Slattery,” he said. “I have the greatest respect and liking for Naga. I cannot somehow believe that he would oppose me to-morrow unless he first gave me some intimation of his intention. Besides, he isn’t in the least bellicose. I believe him to be an honourable man, and I can’t imagine his being mixed up in any Teutonic plot.”

Grant nodded.

“I, too,” he agreed, “have a great respect for Naga. At the same time, with these Orientals, one has to remember it is their country first, their country second, their country all the time.”

There were warning sounds from outside—the exodus of all the young people into the hall. Insistent voices called for Grant. He slipped across and unlocked the door.

“You had better go,” his host advised. “We understand one another and there is nothing more to be done at present. Tomorrow, after the meeting of the Conference, we shall know where we stand.”

“It’s a private meeting, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Thank God, we’ve managed to keep the Press out. Between you and me, Grant, if there were no newspapers, all the nations of the world would be sitting round in a family party. There would be no wars and very few quarrels. It is the enlightened Press of this generation which provides the fuel for tragedy.”

The door was thrown open.

“‘X to lead the ace of hearts and make the grand slam!’” Lady Susan cried. “Do come along. Grant. Whatever do grand slams in print matter? I have liqueurs on with Arthur that we’re in the Club in twelve minutes. Do you think your Rolls-Royce is equal to it?”

“Nine-and-a-half is my time,” Grant replied. “Nine, if you run up the stairs. Come on!”

The little party hurried off, their automobile lights flashing through the darkness of the curving drive, their voices disturbing the owls and waking many echoes in the violet stillness. Then the last car glided off down the hill and the Villa was left in silence.

Towards it, from the other side of Nice, came thundering through the darkness a great limousine, with its four lights flaring and siren whistle blowing. Outside, the driver sat with a face like a graven mask, with one thought in his brain. Inside, a man lay back amongst the cushions, upon whose forehead the sign of death seemed to already rest.