“This is far more than a war between Britain and America,” said the Lord Paramount. “Or any war. It is a struggle for the soul of man. All over the world. Let us suppose the President is hypocritical — and he MAY be hypocritical; nevertheless, he is appealing to something which has become very real and powerful in the world. He may be attempting only to take advantage of that something in order to turn the world against me, but that does not make that something to which he appeals less considerable. It is a spirit upon which he calls, a powerful, dangerous spirit. It is the antagonist to the spirit that sustains me, whose embodiment I am. It is my real enemy.”

“You say things so wonderfully,” said Mrs. Pinchot.

“You see this man, entrusted in wartime with the leadership of a mighty sovereign state, spits his venom against all sovereign states — against all separate sovereignty. He, the embodiment of a nation, deprecates nationality. He, the constitutional war leader, repudiates war. This is Anarchism enthroned — at the White House. Here is a mighty militant organization — and it has no face. Here is political blackness and night. This is the black threat at the end of history.”

He paused and resumed with infinite impressiveness:

“Everywhere this poison of intellectual restatement undermines men’s souls. Even honest warfare, you see, becomes impossible. Propaganda ousts the heroic deed. We promise. We camouflage. We change the face of things. Treason calls to treason.”

She sat tense, gripping her typewriter with both hands, her eyes devouring him.

“Not THUS,” said the Lord Paramount his fine voice vibrating. “Not THUS. . . .”

“The jewels of life I say are loyalty, flag, nation, obedience, sacrifice. . . . The Lord of Hosts! . . . Embattled millions! . . .

“I will fight to the end,” said the Lord Paramount. “I will fight to the end. . . . Demon, I defy thee! . . .”

His hands sought symbolic action. He crumpled the Presidential address into a ball. He pulled it out again into long rags and tore it to shreds and flung them over the carpet. He walked up and down, kicking them aside. He chanted the particulars of his position. “The enemy relentless — false allies — rebels in the Empire — treachery, evasion, and cowardice at home. God above me! It is no light task that I have in hand. Enemies that change shape, foes who are falsehoods! Is crown and culmination in the succession of empires ours to close in such a fashion? I fight diabolical ideas. If all the hosts of evil rise in one stupendous alliance against me, still will I face them for King and Nation and Empire.”

He was wonderful, that lonely and gigantic soul pacing the room, thinking aloud, hewing out his mighty apprehensions in fragmentary utterances. The scraps of the torn Presidential address now, in hopeless rout, showed a disposition to get under tables and chairs and into odd corners. It was as if they were ashamed of the monstrous suggestions of strange disloyalties that they had brought to him.

“Curious and terrifying to trace the growth of this Adversary, the Critical Spirit, this destroyer of human values. . . . From the days when Authority ruled. When even to question was fatal. . . . Great days then for the soul. Simple faith and certain action. Right known and Sin defined. Now we are nowhere. Sheep without a shepherd. . . . First came little dis............