CHAPTER XIX
I
Valerie and Dane were at Rotorua when the war cloud burst over Europe at the end of July. For two weeks he had been much in the company of some Englishmen talking over the rumours. One of the travellers had been only recently in the Balkans. They all thought it would blow over till they read the cable telling of the Russian mobilization.
Dane was much more roused than Valerie over the news of the next few days. His health, much improved by a month at the resort, was further improved by his preoccupation with the outbreak of war. On the first of August they packed up, weeks before they had intended to, and returned to Auckland, where Dane could get the news as it reached the newspaper offices. He spent a good deal of time in them with the little groups of men who sat waiting for news, frantically waiting for news, cursing the lack of news, hating their isolation from the maelstrom of action. There seemed to be a conspiracy of silence against newspaper men. The cables were meagre and fragmentary. The Government, probably left much in doubt itself, kept a maddening silence.
And because of this lack of information, any man who had any European knowledge, any wide knowledge of international affairs, above all, any knowledge of German schemes and philosophy, was listened to with keen attention. Dane had lived in Germany, and had read and seen something of the policy of blood and iron. He knew Nietzsche and Treitschke. He knew German history, and
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