Thanatos and Heracles fought over the veiled queen. But in truth it
rests with us, the audience, and not with any of the leading
characters in the drama, to bring that still veiled figure into life
and light, and to give it a lasting place in the world's household.

Meanwhile the idea is born; but into a Europe still ringing with the
discords of war, and in a France still doubtful and full of fears.
There is a brooding and threatening presence beyond the Rhine. And
among the soldiers going and coming between the Rhine bridge-heads and
Paris, there is a corresponding and anxious sense of the fierce
vitality of Germany, and of the absence of any real change of heart
among her people. Meanwhile the relations between Great Britain and
America were never closer, and the determination of the leading men in
both countries to forge a bond beyond breaking between us was never so
clear. There are problems and difficulties ahead in this friendship,
as in all friendships, whether national or individual. But a common
good-will will solve them, a common resolve to look the facts of the
moment and the hopes of the future steadily in the face.




CHAPTER II

THE DEFENSIVE BATTLE OF LAST SPRING

I.


_March, 1919._