"It is."

"What's he think of you bringing me in here?"

"I shouldn't attempt to say," said I. "Moxon's mind is one of the riddles I shall never solve. Sometimes I feel inclined to believe that he never thinks at all."

She sat silent for a moment or two staring at the fire, and then suddenly looked up quickly at me.

Why did you bring me in here?" she asked.

It came to my lips to give some irrelevant answer. Why should I tell her? Would she understand it if I did? But then there flashed across my mind the belief I always hold that above all creatures women are gifted with understanding, and I told her of the story I had just heard.

"And what's that to do with me?" she asked.

66

Nothing," I replied, "and everything. One woman in trouble is the whole world of women in distress. What I have

to complain of is that they never come to me. You did. That's why I brought you in here. If this child in Ireland were to appeal to me

"How can she?"

"That's true," said I," she doesn't know me."

She looked at me queerly-deedily is the word—and, almost in a whisper, she asked, "Why don't you go to her?" I leant back in my chair and laughed.

"What, become a Don Quixote!" said I. "Go out and tilt at windmills, try to pose knight-errant to a child who's lost her heart to someone else! What's the good of saving any woman from her own infatuation? She'll only hate you for it."

She looked me strangely in the face.

"She'll thank you for it one day," she said, and there were whole years of terror in her voice.

Suddenly, then, I saw things differently, and at that moment came Moxon into the room.

"The 'taxi' for the lady," said he.

CHAPTER IV

NOT only has Moxon his ideas about me; he has also his

ideas about women.

"They're a strange lot of people," he said once to me, meaning women, but as if they were all huddled together in waiting down in the hall.

"By which you mean?" said I.

"By which I mean, sir, that my sister Amy has thrown off the man she was engaged to and has taken to religion."

That was not telling me much what he meant. I doubt if he really knew himself. In all probability it was that he had come violently to the conclusion that he knew nothing whatever about them, in which case a man will speak knowingly of women in non-committal terms.

In the same diplomatic way, I knew he must be thinking a great deal with every blast of that whistle out in the street, and doubtless in the same diplomatic way, he would express it later.

I returned therefore with a certain amount of expectancy to my room as soon as the "taxi" had driven off and that poor little creature had vanished away into the gray heart of her own world. There was that which I had slipped into her purse which might pay for the fare and perhaps a hat as well. God knows what hats cost, for I do not. Wherefore, when I put my hand into my pocket, I left it to God to suggest the amount.

And then, as I say, I returned, with a deal of expectancy in my mind. Moxon was putting out my slippers with Dandy looking on-Dandy assuring him, with expressions of contempt for his intelligence, that it was not a bit of good.

"There's someone with him," sniffed Dandy. "We shall have to sit up till they go," and he looked back again into the fire.

I remained there for a moment watching him, really waiting to hear what Moxon had to say. He stood up then, and as he said it, upon my soul, I came to the conclusion that I had never had such respect for diplomacy before.

"Is there anything more, sir?" he asked, and had there been a conscience to prick me, I swear to Heaven I should have

begged his pardon for having asked so much. As it was, I smiled serenely when I looked back into his face.

"No-I think that's enough," said I.

And when he replied, “Yes, sir," it was intended to convey that he entirely agreed with me.

I let him get to the door and there he stopped, looking round the room once more, to see if I had forgotten anything on my own account; then as he was departing, I called him back. It might have been enough for him; it was a gross misrepresentation to say that it was enough for me.

"Do you mean to say, Moxon," I began," that you wouldn't help a woman if she was in trouble?"

"I was not aware, sir," he replied, "that I had said anything about any woman."

I had to swallow that as best I could and begin again on a fresh score.

"Well," I continued, "if a woman had asked you to give her her cab fare home-a woman drenched to the skin, sheltering in a doorway, shivering in the cold at one o'clock at nightwhat would you do?"

"Naturally—if you put it that way, sir-but it's against my principles, and, what's more, I'm never out at one o'c night, I make a point of being in by half-past eleven."

This was too evasive for me. So far as his principles are concerned, I know all about them. A man who supports his mother and two sisters out of his earnings has every right to talk about it being against his principles to help a woman in distress; but there is no special call upon one to believe him. I fancy myself that when, in a moment of confidence, Moxon told me that women as a rule do not take to him, it is that he wishes to hide his affection for the whole sex. I quite agree with him. If I had any affection for the sex, I should try to hide it myself.

But all this was really beside the point. One thing, and one thing only, was in full occupation of my mind the last words that little half-drowned mouse had said to me before she went. "She'll thank you for it one day."

(To be continued)

THE FORUM

FOR AUGUST 1911

T

THE BALANCE OF POWER IN 1915

HARRY D. BRANDYCE

HE year 1915 will be marked by two events of worldwide importance—the opening to traffic of the Panama Canal, and the expiration by limitation of the AngloJapanese Treaty of Alliance.* The effects will make themselves felt almost immediately by all of the more important nations in that the changed conditions of politics and trade must of necessity cause a readjustment of the phenomenon known as the Balance of Power.

The great military and naval Powers of the world are just now divided into two groups, the one headed by Germany and the other by England. Only Russia and the United States are not yet included in these combinations; Russia because she is biding her time-watching, as it were, which way the cat will jump; the United States because we are traditionally opposed to what Washington called "entangling alliances."

The Triple Alliance established by Bismarck-Germany, Austria, Italy-is held together by a formal treaty; whereas England, France and Japan are variously bound, the first two by the famous Entente Cordiale made possible by the tact of Edward VII; and England and Japan by the treaty of 1905.

Just now there is a constant shuffling for advantage, each party trying to win Russia over to its side. The fickle Muscovite, however, is not easy to win, and makes what advantageous terms he can first with one nation, then with another.

The position of Russia is a curious one. While still the avowed ally of France under the treaties of 1891 and 1897, she

* See footnote on p. 141.-EDITOR,

is also bound to England by a somewhat indefinite "understanding" which was effected several years ago through the able diplomacy of King Edward. But a year after that monarch had succeeded in healing the breach which had been constantly widening between Russia and England since the Russo-Japanese War, the German Emperor seized a momentary opportunity to solidify the Triple Alliance by and with the consent and aid of Nicholas II. He not only persuaded the Tsar to recognize the complete independence of Bulgaria—a task mitigated somewhat by the eagerness of Russia to countenance any move which should make for the weakening of Turkey-but he got Nicholas to approve the annexation by Austria of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina-two States hitherto under the suzerainty of the Sublime Porte. What he promised Russia in return for these friendly acts is not definitely known, but the result has been a tightening of the bonds between Germany and Austria.

On the other hand the Kaiser just recently received a rude setback in his propaganda when Russia some three months ago gave him to understand that so far as France and her Moroccan policy was concerned, Germany must remember that the Dual Alliance was still in effect, and that Russia would not brook any officious interference on the part of Germany with the actions of France in the Moorish Empire.

The constant desire of Germany to have a finger in every political pie is nowhere more evident than in her attitude in the Moroccan situation. She has no "vital interests" in the Shereefian Empire which require looking after, while Spain and France are very closely concerned in the affairs of that turbulent corner of Africa; but apparently the Kaiser considers it entirely consistent with his dreams of a Greater Germany to make capital out of any situation of distrust between other Powers. The German press is just now clamoring for a concession from Morocco, particularly a coaling-station on the Atlantic Coast of Northern Africa; and with that end in view the Foreign Office is quietly stirring up anti-French feeling in Madrid. England and France could not afford to allow Mogador, for instance, to be leased or ceded to Germany, for that would give the Kaiser a base on the routes to South Africa and South America; yet any attempt