CHAPTER XI. A COMMISSION

Mr. Robert Blaine-Harvey, American Ambassador and Plenipotentiary
Extraordinary to England, was a man of great culture, surprising
personal gifts, and with a diplomatic instinct which amounted
almost to genius. And yet there were times when he was puzzled.
For at least half an hour he had been sitting in his great
library, looking across the Park, and trying to make up his mind
on a very important matter. It seemed to him that he was face to
face with what amounted almost to a crisis in his career. His two
years at the Court of St. James had been pleasant and uneventful
enough. The small questions which had presented themselves for
adjustment between the two countries were, after all, of no
particular importance and were easily arranged. The days seemed
to have gone by for that over-strained sensitiveness which was
continually giving rise to senseless bickerings, when every
trilling breeze seemed to fan the smouldering fires of jealousy.
The two great English-speaking nations appeared finally to have
realized the absolute folly of continual disputes between
countries whose destiny and ideals were so completely in accord
and whose interests were, in the main, identical. A period of
absolute friendliness had ensued. And now there had come this
little cloud. It was small enough at present, but Mr. Harvey was
not the one to overlook its sinister possibilities. Two citizens
of his country had been barbarously murdered within the space of
a few hours, one in the heart of the most thickly populated
capital in the world, and there was a certain significance
attached to this fact which the Ambassador himself and those
others at Washington perfectly well realized. He glanced once
more at the most recent letter on the top of this pile of