"It means more than that, sir," said Beale quietly.
Lord Sevington stopped and faced him.
"More than that? What do you mean?"
"It may mean a cornless world for a generation," said Beale. "I have consulted the best authorities, and they agree that the soil will be infected for ten years."
The four men looked at one another helplessly.
"Why," said Sevington, in awe, "the whole social and industrial fabric of the world would crumble into dust. America would be ruined for a hundred years, there would be deaths by the million. It means the very end of civilization!"
Beale glanced from one to the other of the little group.
Sevington, with his hard old face set in harsh lines, a stony sphinx of a man showing no other sign of his emotions than a mop of ruffled hair.
Kitson, an old man and almost as hard of feature, yet of the two more human, stood with pursed lip, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if he were studying the geometrical pattern of the parquet for future reference.
McNorton, big, red-faced and expressionless, save that his mouth dropped and that his arms were tightly folded as if he were hugging himself in a sheer ecstasy of pain. From the street outside came the roar and rumble of London's traffic, the dull murmur of countless voices and the shrill high-pitched whine of a newsboy.
Men and women were buying newspapers and seeing no more in the scare headlines than a newspaper sensation.
To-morrow they might read further and grow a little uncomfortable, but for the moment they were only mildly interested, and the majority would turn to the back page for the list of "arrivals" at Lingfield.
"It is unbelievable," said Kitson. "I have exactly the same feeling I had on August 1, 1914—that sensation of unreality."
His voice seemed to arouse the Foreign Minister from the meditation into which he had fallen, and he started.
"Beale," he said, "you have unlimited authority to
