Prince will tell you,” he said. “He can scarcely do more to show his regard for your country. He is giving you a special interview—you alone out of about two hundred journalists. Very likely he will give you an exact account of everything that transpired. First of all, he will assure you that this meeting has been brought about in the interests of peace. He will tell you that the welfare of your dear country is foremost in the thoughts of his master. He will assure you—” 

 “Say, you’re jealous, my friend,” Dorward interrupted calmly. “I wonder what you’d give me for my ten minutes alone with the Chancellor, eh?” 

 “If he told me the truth,” Bellamy asserted, “I’d give my life for it. For the sort of stuff you’re going to hear, I’d give nothing. Can’t you realize that for yourself, Dorward? You know the man—false as Hell but with the tongue of a serpent. He will grasp your hand; he will declare himself glad to speak through you to the great Anglo-Saxon races—to England and to his dear friends the Americans. He is only too pleased to have the opportunity of expressing himself candidly and openly. Peace is to be the watchword of the future. The white doves have hovered over the Palace. The rulers of the earth have met that the crash of arms may be stilled and that this terrible unrest which broods over Europe shall finally be broken up. They have pledged themselves hand in hand to work together for this object,—Russia, broken and humiliated, but with an immense army still available, whose only chance of holding her place among the nations is another and a successful war; Austria, on fire for the seaboard—Austria, to whom war would give the desire of her existence; Germany, with Bismarck’s last but secret words written in letters of fire on the walls of her palaces, in the hearts of her rulers, in the brain of her great Emperor. Colonies! Expansion! Empire! Whose colonies, I wonder? Whose empire? Will he tell you that, my friend Dorward?” 

 The journalist shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the clock. 

 “I guess he’ll tell me what he chooses and I shall print it,” he answered indifferently. “It’s all part of the game, of course. I am not exactly chicken enough to expect the truth. All the same, my message will come from the lips of the Chancellor immediately after this wonderful meeting.” 

 “He makes use of you,” Bellamy declared, “to throw dust into our eyes and yours.” 

 “Even so,” Dorward admitted, “I don’t care so long as I get the copy. It’s good-bye, I suppose?” 

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