The Pawns Count by E. Phillips Oppenheim

High up in one of the topmost chambers of the Hotel Plaza, Nikasti, after his conference with Von Schwerin and Fischer, sought solitude. He opened the high windows, out of which he could scarcely see, dragged up a chest of drawers and perched himself, Oriental fashion, on the top, his long yellow fingers intertwined around his knees, his soft brown eyes gazing over the wooded slopes of the Park. He was away from the clamour of tongues, from the poisoned clouds of sophistry, even from the disturbance of his own thoughts, incited by specious arguments to some form of reciprocity. Here he sat in the clouds and searched for the true things. His eyes seemed to be travelling over the battlefields of Europe. He saw the swaying fortunes of mighty armies, he looked into council chambers, he seemed to feel the pulses of the great world force which kept going this most amazing Juggernaut.

He saw the furnaces of Japan, blazing by night and day; saw the forms of hundreds of thousands of his fellow creatures bent to their task; saw the streams of ships leaving his ports, laden down with stores; saw the great guns speeding across Siberia, the endless trains of ammunition, the rifles, food for the famine-stricken giants who beat upon the air with empty fists. He saw the gold come streaming back. He saw it poured into the banks, the pockets of the merchants, the homes of his people. He saw brightening days throughout the land. He saw the slow but splendid strength of the nation rejoicing in its new possibilities. And beyond that, what? Wealth was the great means towards the great end, but if the great end were once lost sight of, there was no more hideous poison than that stream of enervating prosperity. He remembered his own diatribes concerning the decadence of England; how he had pointed to the gold poison, to the easy living of the poor, the blatant luxury of the rich.