"Never! never!" Julian had cried out at the top of his voice.
"And if we weren't in it," Sir William shouted, "we'd be wiped off the map. What's more, we'd deserve to be."
"I tell you," Julian vociferated, "England will never consent to be dragged into this quarrel."
"England won't be dragged in. She will go in because it would be a shame to keep out. She _is_ in!"
Napier sat damning himself with uncommon vigor. Idiot! that he hadn't foreseen the Von Schwarzenberg's agile apprehension of this new use to which Nanchen's lover might be put. Too late the realization that her baulked eagerness for official news had made her egg on Julian to engage his fellow Scot at their real "national game"--which isn't golf at all. Debate's the name of it. Those two played it with passion. Nothing could stop them now. Sir William trumpeted at Julian, and Julian skirled wildly back. The hall was in confusion.
"You said England never _would_," Nan cried across to Miss Greta.
"I said she wouldn't be so ill-advised," was the barely audible answer.
The shell-shock of Sir William's bomb had shaken even Greta von Schwarzenberg. From that first impact she recovered her mental poise at a price. Her face was white with the cost of it, or under the tension of some immediate decision. It suddenly came over Napier: she wants more than anything on earth to warn the Pforzheims.
She made a slight movement. It brought the clock within range. Five minutes to luncheon time. "Five minutes," Napier said to himself, "in which to get the news to Glenfallon," if he didn't prevent her.
It suddenly flashed over Napier that he might learn more by letting her communicate with the Pforzheims than by preventing her. A highly important conclusion about Miss Greta herself might thus be reached in the only possible way. And the harm done by the Pforzheims knowing? The die was already cast. The German Government knew that. The whole world would know it in a few hours. The Pforzheims couldn't even gamble on the tip. The stock exchange was closed.
There was yet another consideration very present to Napier's cautious type of mind. Suppose he were mistaken as to the woman's designs. Such a mistake, besides being intensely disagreeable to any one of decent feeling, would "do" for you with the McIntyres. Undoubtedly would "do" for you with Nan.