WORLD'S END

All the problems of the world had been dumped onto the shoulders of a few elderly men; and the world had to crumble to pieces while one after another of these men broke down under the strain. There was that terrible influenza loose in Paris, striking blindly, like another war. It was the middle of winter, and winds came storming across the North Sea, tempered somewhat by the time they got to Paris, but laden with sleet and snow. It would cover the mansard roofs and pile up on the chimney pots; it didn't last many hours, and then the streets would be carpeted with slush, and the miasma that rose from it bore germs which had been accumulating through a thousand years of human squalor.

II

Early in February the Bolshevik government announced its willingness to send delegates to the Prinkipo conference. That put it up to President Wilson to act, if he was going to stand by his project. A few days later Alston told his secretary an exciting piece of news: the President had decided to name two delegates, one an American journalist, William Allen White, and the other Alston's old-time mentor, George D. Herron!

The official announcement was made a day or two later and raised a storm of protest from the "best" people back home. The New York Times led off with an editorial blast exposing the Socialist ex-clergyman's black record; the Episcopal bishop of New York followed suit, and the church people and the women's clubs rushed to the defense of the American home. It was bad enough to propose sitting at a council table with bloody-handed thugs and nationalizers of women; but to send to them a man who shared their moral depravity was to degrade the fair name of Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. All this was duly cabled and printed in Paris, and reinforced the efforts of the Quai d'Orsay to torpedo the Prinkipo proposal.

Herron, who had gone back to his home in Geneva, now returned to Paris, deeply stirred by the opportunity which had come to him. No longer would he have to sit helpless and watch the world crumble. He saw himself arbitrating this ferocious class war which had spread over one-sixth of the globe and was threatening to wreck another huge section of Europe. He was busy day and night with conferences; the newspaper men swarmed about him, asking questions, not merely about Russia and the Reds, but about free love in relation to the Christian religion, and whatever else might make hot news for the folks at home.

The Socialist prophet was all ready to go to work. But how was he to do it? He had never held an official position, and came to Alston for advice. How did one set about working for a government? Where did one go? If he was to set out for Prinkipo, presumably he would have a staff, and an escort, and some funds. Where would he get them?

Alston advised him to see Mr. Lansing. That was easy, because the Secretary of State didn't have much to do in Paris. Formal and stiff, his feelings had been mortally wounded because so few persons paid attention to him. But he didn't want the attention of Socialist prophets; he looked on Herron as on some strange bird. He was as cold as the snowy night outside, as remote as the ceiling of his palatial reception room with the plaster cupids dancing on it. He had received no instructions about the conference, didn't approve of it, and was sure it would prove futile.

President Wilson was driven day and night trying to get ready for his departure, and Herron could find nobody who knew or cared about the musical-comedy place called Prinkipo. The Supreme Council had passed a resolution, but unless there was someone to fight for it and keep on fighting, it would be nothing but so many words. Alston explained the intrigues of the French as he knew them. Herron, a simple man to whose nature deception was foreign, was helpless against such forces. People fought shy of him, perhaps because of the scandal freshly raked up, but mainly because he was believed to sympathize with the Reds. In a matter like that it was safer to lie low - and let Marshal Foch and Winston Churchill have their way.

III