Powers could not enter negotiations until they reached their Objectives.
"The agency is certainly not worth what it was," David said to Alice, when he reported to her that he had made his second payment to Mr. Fuller, "but I think I could get the last fifteen thousand I owe—or something close to it—if I sold out my interest."
"You mean you're thinking of selling out?" she asked.
"Shouldn't we?" he replied, speaking the "we" for her and him, which he had not said since they were in college. "This country's surely going into the war; and selling out is the only way for me to be ready."
"You ought to be ready," she said and her heart halted.
Barely a month after this day the President sent back Bernstorff to Berlin.
It was a Saturday, upon which this was announced, and David telephoned to Alice early in the afternoon and when he had told her the news, he said, "No one's going to buy a car to-day and I don't feel like selling, either. Do you mind if I come out early?"
Alice told him that she did not mind; and while she waited, she shut herself in her room with a letter from Myra, which had arrived a few days before. Myra was full of fear for Lan who was in Serbia and who had not been heard from in two months. Alice trembled as she held the letter and she declared to herself: "He's going away too; and it's your pride that's been keeping you from him. You're still hurt because he preferred her to you and you're afraid to have what
