Their host returned, followed by his butler carrying a tray with refreshments, and the burden of serious things fell away from them. It was only after Catherine had departed, and the two men lingered for a moment near the fire before retiring, that either of them reverted to the great subject which dominated their thoughts.
“You understand, Julian,” the Bishop said, with a shade of anxiety in his tone, “that I am in the same position as yourself so far as regards the proposals which may lie within that envelope? I have joined this movement--or conspiracy, as I suppose it would be called--on the one condition that the terms pronounced there are such as a Christian and a law-loving country, whose children have already made great sacrifices in the cause of freedom, may honourably accept. If they are otherwise, all the weight and influence I may have with the people go into the other scale. I take it that it is so with you?”
“Entirely,” Julian acquiesced. “To be frank with you,” he added, “my doubts are not so much concerning the terms of peace themselves as the power of the German democracy to enforce them.”
“We have relied a good deal,” the Bishop admitted, “upon reports from neutrals.”
“We have wasted a good many epithets criticising German diplomacy,” he observed, “but she seems to know how to hold most of the neutrals in the hollow of her hand. You know what that Frenchman said? ‘Scratch a neutral and you find a German propaganda agent!’”
The Bishop led the way upstairs. Outside the door of Julian’s room, he laid his hand affectionately upon the young man’s shoulder.
“My godson,” he said, “as yet we have scarcely spoken of this great surprise which you have given us--of Paul Fiske. All that I shall say now is this. I am very proud to know that he is my guest to-night. I am very happy to think that from tomorrow we shall be fellow workers.”
Catherine, while she waited for her tea in the Carlton lounge on the following afternoon, gazed through the drooping palms which sheltered the somewhat secluded table at which she was seated upon a very brilliant scene. It was just five o’clock, and a packed crowd of fashionable Londoners was listening to the strains of a popular band, or as much of it as could be heard above the din of conversation.