breaking the pledge to you--simply on the ground of inhumanity."

"War is inhumanity"--said Seaton--"The use of my discovery would be
no worse than war."

"Granted!--but war makes money for certain sections of the
community,--you must think of that!" and Gwent's little shrewd eyes
gleamed like bits of steel.--"Money!--money! Stores--food, clothing-
-transport--all these things in war mean fortunes to the
contractors--while the wiping out of a nation in YOUR way would mean
loss of money. Loss of life wouldn't matter,--it never does really
matter--not to governments!--but loss of money--ah, well!--that's a
very different and much more serious affair!"

A cynical smile twisted his features as he spoke, and Roger Seaton,
standing opposite to him with his fine head well thrown back on his
shoulders and his whole face alive with the power of thought, looked
rather like a Viking expostulating with some refractory vassal.

"So you think the United States wouldn't take my 'discovery?'" he
said--"Or--if they took it--couldn't be trusted to keep a pledged
word?"

Gwent shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course our government could be trusted as much as any other
government in the world,"--he said--"Perhaps more. But it would
exonerate itself for breaking even a pledged word which necessitated
an inhuman act involving loss of money! See? War is an inhuman act,
but it brings considerable gain to those who engineer it,--this