In the course of the morning she made several mysterious inquiries of
her parent regarding nice points of international law as it concerned
murder, and it is probable that he would have been struck by the odd
nature of these questions had he not been unduly excited about another
matter.
"I tell you, we've got to get home!" he announced gloomily. "The German
troops are ready at Aix-la-Chapelle for an assault on Liege. Yes,
sir--they're going to strike through Belgium! Know what that means?
England in the war! Labor troubles; suffragette troubles; civil war in
Ireland--these things will melt winter in Texas. They'll go in. It would
be national suicide if they didn't."
His daughter stared at him. She was unaware that it was the bootblack
at the Carlton he was now quoting. She began to think he knew more about
foreign affairs than she had given him credit for.
"Yes, sir," he went on; "we've got to travel--fast. This won't be a
healthy neighborhood for non-combatants when the ruction starts. I'm
going if I have to buy a liner!"
"Nonsense!" said the girl. "This is the chance of a lifetime. I won't
be cheated out of it by a silly old dad. Why, here we are, face to face
with history!"
"American history is good enough for me," he spread-eagled. "What are
you looking at?"
"Provincial to the death!" she said thoughtfully. "You old dear--I love
you so! Some of our statesmen over home are going to look pretty foolish
now in the face of things they can't understand I hope you're not going
to be one of them."
"Twaddle!" he cried. "I'm going to the steamship offices to-day and
argue as I never argued for a vote."
His daughter saw that he was determined; and, wise from long experience,
she did not try to dissuade him.
London that hot Monday was a city on the alert, a city of hearts heavy
with dread. The rumors in one special edition of the papers were denied
in the next and reaffirmed in the next. Men who could look into the
future walked the streets with faces far from happy. Unrest ruled the
town. And it found its echo in the heart of the girl from Texas as she
thought of her young friend of the Agony Column "in durance vile" behind
the frowning walls of Scotland Yard.
That afternoon her father appeared, with the beaming mien of the victor,
and announced that for a stupendous sum he had bought the tickets of a
man who was to have sailed on the steamship Saronia three days hence.