But now, after these confident beginnings, came a pause for thought. So far he had been doing his best to leave America out of the reckoning. He had counted on a certain excitement and discontent over there. His concerted action with Japan, and particularly the revelation of a secret understanding with Tokio, was, he knew, bound to produce irritation. But he was now to realize the extreme sensitiveness of American opinion, not only to any appearance of interference with American shipping, but also to any tampering with American interests in China and eastern Siberia. And he was to realize reluctantly how alien to British ideas American thought has become.

He was suddenly and strenuously visited by the new American ambassador. Abruptly on the heel of a telephone message at one o’clock in the morning the American ambassador came.

Through some conspiracy of accidents the Lord Paramount had not yet met the American ambassador. Mr. Rufus Chanson had been in France, where his wife had been undergoing an operation. Now he had come back post-haste, and a communication from Washington had brought him headlong to the Lord Paramount in the small hours.

His appearance recalled at once a certain Mr. Hamp, a banker whom Mr. Parham had met at that memorable dinner at Sir Bussy’s. He had the same rather grayish complexion, the same spectacles; he stooped in the same way, and he spoke with the same deliberation. If he had not been Mr. Rufus Chanson, he would certainly have been Mr. Hamp.

He was received in the War Office room that had now become the Lord Paramount’s home. He was ushered in almost furtively by an under secretary. Mrs. Pinchot, with whom the Lord Paramount had been relaxing his mind, sat in one corner throughout the interview, watching her master with dark adoring eyes.

“My lord!” said Mr. Chanson, advancing without a greeting. “What does this mean? What does it all mean? I’ve hardly kept touch. I got papers on board the boat, and my secretary met me at Dover. I’m thunderstruck. What have you been doing? Why have I got this?” He waved an open document in his hand.

The Lord Paramount was surprised by his visitor’s extreme agitation but remained calm. “Mr. Chanson, I believe,” he said and offered his hand and motioned to a chair. “May I ask what is the matter?”

“Don’t say you’ve been deliberately interfering with American shipping at Tientsin,” implored Mr. Chanson. “After all that has passed. Don’t say you’ve seized five ships. Don’t say it’s by your orders the Beauty of Narragansett was fired on and sunk with seven men. As things are, if that is so — God knows what our people won’t do!”

“There is a blockade.”

The American appealed to heaven. “WHY, in the name of Holiness, is there a blockade?”

“There has been some incident,” the Lord Paramount admitted. He turned to Mrs. Pinchot, who rustled with her papers. Her little clear voice confirmed, “Beauty of Narragansett refused to obey signals and sunk. Number of drowned not stated.”

“My God!” said Mr. Chanson. “Will you British people never understand that in the American people you’re dealing with the most excitable people on God’s earth? Why did you let it happen? You’re asking for it.”

“I don’t understand,” said the Lord Paramount calmly.

“Oh, God! He doesn’t understand! The most sensitive, the most childish, the most intelligent and resolute of nations! And he outrages their one darling idea, the Freedom of the Seas, and he sinks one of their ships and seven of their citizens as though they were so many Hindoos!”

The Lord Paramount regarded the scolding, familiar-mannered figure and contrasted it with any possible European diplomatist. Surely the Americans were the strongest of all strangers. And yet so close to us. It was exactly like being scolded by a brother or an intimate schoolfellow, all seemliness forgotten.

“We gave notice of our intention. We were within our rights.”

“I’m not here to argue points. What are we going to do about it? Couldn’t you have given way just on that particular thing? I can’t help myself, I have to give you this dispatch.”

He didn’t offer to give it. He seemed indeed to cling to it.

“Listen to me, my Lord Paramount,” he said. “The President is a man of Peace; he’s God’s own man of Peace; but remember also he’s the spokesman of the American people and he has to speak as their representative. This dispatch, sir, is going to the newspapers as we talk. It can’t be held. Here it is. You may think it hectoring, but half the folks over there will say it isn’t hectoring enough. The Freedom of the Seas! They’re mad for ............