"But you said just now," Sylvia reminded him, "that all the European statesmen were to be found in the Balkans."
"I still say that, but our statesmen--we have only two--dare not in the presence of this war think of anything except the safety of the country. Republicanism would be of little use to a Rumania absorbed either into the Dual Monarchy or into the Czardom of Russia or ravaged by the hellish Bulgarians. I tell you that we see precipices before our steps whichever way we turn for the path; but because we are young we dress ourselves up and gamble and sing and dance and swagger and boast; we are young, my dear girl--very, very young, perhaps not old enough for our death to be anything but pathetic."
"You're in a very pessimistic mood to-night," Sylvia said.
"Who could be anything but gloomy when he looks round a room like this? A crowd of French, Rumanian, and Austrian cocottes dancing to 'Tipperary' in this infernal tinkling din--forgive my frankness, but you know I don't include _you_ in the _galère_--while over there I see a cousin of my own, a member of one of our greatest families, haggling with a dirty German agent over the price of sending another six aeroplanes to Turkey disguised as agricultural implements; and over there I see a man, who I had always hoped was an honest editor, selling his pen to the fat little German baron that will substitute poison for ink and bank-notes for honest opinions; and over there are three brother officers with three girls on their knees singing the words of 'Tipperary' with as much intelligence as apes, while they brag to their companions of how in six weeks they will be marching to save France."
"They don't miss much by not understanding the words," Sylvia said, with a smile.
"I don't understand how a woman like you can tolerate or endure this life," Philidor exclaimed, fanatically. "Why don't you take that pretty little sister of yours out of it and back to England? I don't understand how you can stay here with your country at war."
"That's too long a story to tell you now," Sylvia said. "But between ourselves she's not really my sister."
"I never supposed she was," Philidor answered. "She's not English, either, is she?"