The preliminaries of Grant’s mission to London seemed to him, eager to get into touch with the vital things, monotonous and a little wearisome. He paid his respects to his own Ambassador and received the entree to the Embassy. Afterwards he made a formal application for an appointment with Lord Yeovil, and, after a brief delay, was accorded an interview in Downing Street at six o’clock that evening. The interval he filled up by calling with the Naval Attache of his Embassy upon the Admiralty, and with the Military Attache upon the War Office. At six o’clock precisely he was received in Downing Street by Arthur Lymane, who welcomed him with a certain amount of surprise.
“Glad to see you and all that, Slattery,” he said, “but I never thought of you as being on the official side of anything. I thought you’d absolutely chucked the service some years ago.”
“I’m on a special mission,” Grant explained. “They’ve sent me over to see one or two people here and especially Lord Yeovil. I’m going back on Saturday.”
“We shall all be fellow passengers then,” Lymane observed. “Do you think America will be able to stand the troupe of us? Because we’re all coming—even bringing our own little typists this time.”
“Is Lady Susan—” Grant began hesitatingly.
“Yes, Lady Susan’s coming along.”
“She’s all right, I suppose,” Grant enquired. “I don’t seem to have heard anything of her for some time.”
“In the pink. She’s been doing the honours for her father this season and doing them wonderfully, too.”
“Engaged yet?” Grant ventured with a ridiculous affectation of carelessness.
“Nothing announced,” was the cautious reply. “There are three or four of them running neck and neck. Bobby Lancaster’s fallen behind a bit, although he’s as keen as ever. Lord Glentarne’s chief favourite for the moment, and there are a lot of rumours going about that Buckingham Palace has its eye on her. No matrimonial news about you, I suppose, Slattery?”
“None.”
A little bell rang, and Grant was ushered into the presence of the man who, a few months ago, notwithstanding the difference in their ages, had been his most intimate friend. From the moment of his entrance, however, he understood that those days were past. Lord Yeovil was courteous, even friendly. Nevertheless the change in his demeanour would have been apparent to a man of fewer perceptions than Grant.
“Very glad to see you again, Slattery,” the Prime Minister said, motioning him to a seat. “It seems a long time since we used to sit cudgelling our brains about those bridge problems.”
“History is giving us something much more serious with which to occupy ourselves, sir,” Grant replied. “All the things which you and I used to speak about in those days are coming to pass.”
Lord Yeovil nodded.
“This time, I gather, you come to me officially.”
“That is true, sir. I am the bearer of a message and representations from my Government to yours. May I beg for your serious attention?”
“By all means,” the Prime Minister acquiesced. “My car is ordered for seven o’clock. Till then I am at your service. I will just give Arthur a few messages and leave word that we are not to be disturbed.”
Until a quarter to seven Lord Yeovil was an attentive listener. When his visitor had at last finished, he was looking very grave.
“I have always felt a premonition of something of this sort,” he confided. “My invitation to the States was practically founded upon it. But I must confess I had no idea that things were so imminent. Nor even at the present moment is it quite clear to me how Germany and Japan propose to work this thing.”
“There is a great deal that we have to discover yet, sir,” Grant declared. “We’re reconstructing the scheme more thoroughly, day by day, but, from the facts we have, it seems as though the central idea is that the Japanese fleet, which we have reason to believe is much larger than it should be, will approach the west coast of America at exactly the same time that the German fleet approaches the east coast,—the German fleet, by the way, augmented, without a doubt, by the Russian. We in America, as you know, sir, being the instigators of the Limitation of Armaments, have been most scrupulous in keeping zealously to our official tonnage in every class of battleship, and the consequence seems to be that the American fleet, even if it could meet either of these others undivided, would be greatly inferior in numbers, and the idea of dividing it to meet these two opposing forces simultaneously would be simply to court disaster.”
“This, of course, is all supposition,” Lord Yeovil observed.
“Founded upon a certain amount of proof, which I shall presently produce,” Grant went on. “The most urgent matter, however, which I was begged to discuss with you, sir, was the attitude of certain portions of the American Press towards yourself and this country. I shall offer you presently an explanation of that attitude and I am to beg you most sincerely, in the name of the President and the Government, to use your influence with the Press of your own country to avoid, so far as possible, recrimination and reprisal.”
“It is true, I suppose,” Lord Yeovil enquired, “that the New York is no longer conducted in the interests of your Government?”
“The New York,” Grant replied, “has been purchased by Cornelius Blunn, and is the most dangerous organ in the States to-day.”
The Prime Minister glanced at his watch.
“I fear that, for the present, we must postpone our discussion,” he announced. “It has been a great pleasure to see you again, Slattery, and to receive you in an official capacity. No one could have been more welcome—as a representative of your people.”
Grant felt a sudden chill. He took his courage into both hands, however.
“I fear, sir,” he ventured, “that I seem to have forfeited in your eyes the position of which I was once very proud—the position of being a friend of your household.”
Lord Yeovil hesitated. The young man’s directness was almost disconcerting.
“I would not say that,” he rejoined, a little more kindly. “I am naturally a man of the world, and I am not a hard judge of any man’s actions. This is a matter, however, which, if you choose, we will discuss at another time.”
Grant rose to leave. There was again a very perceptible hesitation on his host’s part.
“To-night,” he said, “I am giving a reception at Yeovil House, a sort of farewell before I leave for Washington. Most of the diplomatic people will be present. If you care to attend, it will give me great pleasure to see that you have a card. You are staying at the Embassy?”
“At Claridge’s.”
“You will have a card within an hour.”
Grant once more summoned all his courage.
“Shall I have the pleasure of meeting Lady Susan?” he asked.
“My daughter has made her debut this season as a political hostess,” was the polite but somewhat cold reply. “She will be assisting me to-night.”
It was gone, then, the old cordiality, the easy terms of familiarity on which Grant had stood in the household. Lord Yeovil had become to him—as he was to most of the world—a courteous and polished diplomat, kindly and gracious in words and demeanour, but a person who seemed almost outside the amenities of life. And, if the change was so noticeable in him, what had he to expect from Susan?
He was in a somewhat depressed frame of mind when he called in at Carlton White’s, selected the most beautiful roses he could find, and sent them to Yeovil House. Afterwards he went back to the Embassy and was kept there until eight o’clock. There were many questions raised over the despatches he had brought, which were full of vital interest to various members of the staff. Grant could not help contrasting the atmosphere here and the atmosphere in Washington. Geographically the two were not so far apart. The Press, cables, wireless, rapid travel had, in the language of the journalists, brought the two hemispheres side by side, and yet there was an extraordinary difference in outlook, in political perspective. Things which in Washington seemed far away, phantasmal, hatched in the brain of the alarmist, inconceivable in near life, here assumed a different appearance. Here, at any rate, it was realised that Europe had become once more a huge whispering gallery of intrigue, that the curtain might at any moment be raised once more upon the great drama of war and bloodshed. Facts were the same in both capitals. The atmosphere alone was different. The incredible in one place was the grimly possible in the other.