"But I have told you time and again there will be no war, that I have the highest authority for saying so!" cried Bertha angrily.
"Authority," mocked Franz. "The French of 1870 had the no-war ’authority’ of Napoleon III., the Germans that of William I., before the edict went forth to kill, to maim, to destroy, to strew the earth with corpses and fill the air with lamentations! So it will be this month, this year, next year—for history ever repeats itself—until the hour for aggression, which will be miscalled a defence of our holiest principles and interests, has struck.
"The air pressure has increased," continued Franz, parting the window curtains; "see the lowering clouds! And watch the storm coming up, lashing them in all directions. West and east they are spreading, and, look, north too! They are falling on Northern France, on the Lowlands and Russia like a black pall."
"You prophesy a universal war?" shrieked Bertha.
"The answer is in your ledger. For thirty and more years your firm has been arming the universe. Since your father’s death you have distributed armaments on a vaster scale than ever, and now, I understand, the pace that killeth is to be still more increased.
"When you have furnished Germany with all the guns, the ammunition, the chemicals, the flying machines, the cruisers, the submarines, the hand grenades—what then? Presto! a pretext of the 1870 pattern, or something similar, and Zara’s prophecy will come true as sure as light will burst from this Welsbach now."
"Voilà, Madame War Lady," he said, bowing himself out.
Bertha on Her Dignity—On Thin Ice—Barbara Wants to Know—The Empress’s Toilette
"And now for a good talk," said Barbara, with a look upon the tirewoman who had accompanied Bertha to Court. "Tell me all about Auntie Majesty’s ’Martha.’"
"Oh, she’s far more important than this one," Bertha replied, patting the "Frau’s" cheek; "a Baroness like Mamma and in the Almanach de Gotha."
"Better looking too than our Martha, is she not?" mocked Barbara.
"I won’t go as far as that. She is too tall and angular and spinster-like, and has a nose like Herr Krause—always red."
"No," said Martha, thrusting out her formidable bosom; "she laces too tight, poor thing!"