And so when he looked at this strange front page it
gave him a swift twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of
nations. Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and
Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a turmoil,
with panics in their capitals, money markets going wild.
Edith came down, in her neat black dress with its narrow white collar,
ready for supper. She glanced at her father.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Look at this." And he tossed her a paper.
"Oh-h-h," she murmured softly. "Oh, how frightful that would be." And she
read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from a room upstairs the
sudden cry of one of her children, followed by a shrill wail of distress.
And dropping the paper, she hurried away.
Roger continued his reading.
Deborah came. She saw the paper Edith had dropped, picked it up and sat
down to read, and there were a few moments of absolute silence. Then Roger
heard a quivering breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and
startled, moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending way.
"Pretty serious business," he growled.
"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.
And they resumed their reading.
In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war like a
whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt their own
small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a storm.
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