Yes. The enormous crime had been committed. And, for almost a year, Eugene had been maintaining a desperate neutrality. His heart, however, was not neutral. The fate of civilization, it appeared, hung in the balance.
The war had begun at the peak of the summer season. Dixieland was full. His closest friend at the time was a sharp old spinstress with frayed nerves, who had been for thirty years a teacher of English in a New York City public school. Day by day, after the murder of the Grand Duke, they watched the tides of blood and desolation mount through the world. Miss Crane’s thin red nostrils quivered with indignation. Her old gray eyes were sharp with anger. The idea! The idea!
For, of all the English, none can show a loftier or more inspired love for Albion’s Isle than American ladies who teach its noble tongue.
Eugene was also faithful. With Miss Crane he kept a face of mournful regret, but his heart drummed a martial tattoo against his ribs. The air was full of fifes and flutes; he heard the ghostly throbbing of great guns.
“We must be fair!” said Margaret Leonard. “We must be fair!” But her eyes darkened when she read the news of England’s entry, and her throat was trembling like a bird’s. When she looked up her eyes were wet.
“Ah, Lord!” she said. “You’ll see things now.”
“Little Bobs!” roared Sheba.
“God bless him! Did you see where he’s going to take the field?”
John Dorsey Leonard laid down the paper, and bent over with high drooling laughter.
“Lord a’mercy!” he gasped. “Let the rascals come now!”
Ah, well—they came.
All through that waning summer, Eugene shuttled frantically from
