CHAPTER XVII.
Monsieur Felix Senn, the distinguished Frenchman who had just acquitted himself of the special mission which had brought him to London, was a little loath to depart from the historical chamber in Downing Street.
Diplomatically, the interview was over.

The Prime Minister, however, on this occasion, was courteous, even affable.

There seemed no reason for his visitor to hurry away.
"You will accept, I trust, sir," the latter begged, "this assurance of my extreme regret at the present unfortunate condition of affairs.

I am one of those who threw his hat into the air on the boulevards in August, 1914, when the news came that your great country had decided to fulfil her unwritten promises and in the cause of honour had declared war against Germany.

I have never forgotten that moment, sir, even in those months and years of misunderstandings which followed the signing of the Treaty of Peace.