Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, screwed his eyeglass more firmly into his eye and left the Foreign Office to journey to Rome.
At Paris, a capital with which he was well acquainted, the British Foreign Minister stopped off for a chat with Edouard Herriot.
Behind the gray walls of the Quai d’Orsay the two statesmen conducted an unusual conference. There were no witnesses, and none was needed; not even an interpreter, for Mr. Chamberlain speaks French almost as well as M. Herriot. But the walls of the Quai d’Orsay are not so thick that they do not have chinks, the windows are not so dirty that they are opaque and the doors are not so made that they have no keyholes.
Accordingly, it was bruited that France and Britain, cognizant of the danger from Bolshevism in the East and Near East, would henceforth work hand in hand in a spirit of complete understanding. It seemed likely that new divisions of the world were discussed with a view to resisting the machinations of Moscow.
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