'The next few weeks?' I interrupted in what I fear was a squeak of alarm.

'Do try and keep quiet for a while,' he said. 'I will explain as best I can. Then you must decide on your course of action. When we arrive at our destination you can choose either to get on the next train back to Paris, or you can stay with me. Mr Wilkinson evidently desires that you choose the latter option. From your performance so far I would prefer the former.

'To begin at the beginning. You have been chosen for special qualities which have not yet manifested themselves to me to become what used to be called an intelligencer, and is now rather vulgarly called a spy. Britain is alone in the world, much envied and resented for her wealth and the vastness of her Empire. Many wish to tear her down. She must be self-reliant and can count no one as her friend. She must be aware of everything, and able to sow discord among her enemies. That, in brief, is to be your job.'

I stared at him. Surely this was some sort of bad joke?

'Silence, at last,' he continued. 'You are learning. If Mr Wilkinson decides the national interest is best served by continental peace, you will endeavour – in your small but allotted way – to accomplish it. If he suddenly changes his mind and decides a war is necessary, you will try to set neighbour against neighbour. And above all you will try to discover who is thinking what and when.'

'Me?'

'Good question. A very good question. You are, obviously, unsuited. But perhaps you have some qualities that might make you useful.'

'And those are?'

'Money.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Money,' he said wearily, looking out of the window as though he was seeing a golden age going by. 'All the world is now convertible to money. Power, influence, peace and war. It used to be that the sole determinant was the number of men you could march out to meet your enemies. Now more depends on the convertibility of your currency, its reputation among the bankers. That is something I do not know and you do.'

He smiled, but it was not a happy smile. 'The world changed, in America, some thirty years ago. I suppose we should have seen it coming, but we did not. It was not won or lost by bravery, or skill or numbers of men, but by factories and gold. It was a war of industry against farmers, companies against cavaliers. The losers had fewer resources, less ability to produce the material of war. And those we thought our friends abandoned us for the sake of trade with the richer side.'

'We?'

He ignored the question. 'And what was pioneered there will be even more strongly seen here, next time.'

'You think there will be a war here?'

'I am sure of it. There must be. Because you think that it will be as before and so will not care to prevent it. It will not be armies fighting next time, but economies. Vaults of gold in perpetual contest until all are exhausted. The countries of Europe will fight until they cannot afford to fight any more.'

'I think many in the City already worry about that.'

'But they will be outnumbered by those who will make money from the business. The Vickers, the Krupps and the Schneiders. Men like John Stone and his weaponry. The bankers who provide the money for them, the investors who get their 15 per cent dividends. War and peace will be decided by the movement of capital.'

'And how does this involve me?'

'You understand that world; I do not. I do not want to.'

'You say "our" and "we" and refer to two different countries.'

He nodded. 'I am a man without country. Not French, not British, not even American, although once I was. I work for hire and give good service.'

I considered this. I was not sure I liked this man who called himself Lefevre, and I certainly did not trust him, but he had a presence which could not be lightly ignored. He could command, and it was comfortable to follow him. But I was very far from certain it was wise.

'And if someone offered more?'

'Then I would consider the offer. Men without homes must look after themselves, for they cannot surrender to the comforts of patriotism. I did that once, and will not repeat the mistake. But I am no mercenary. Part of good service is loyalty. And my masters – your masters as well, it now seems – pay me.'

I leaned back in my seat and, like him, watched the landscape outside the window pass by. The train was going fast now, and the city had long since been left behind. We were in the open countryside, heading east – to Metz, so the sign in the the station had said.

But if Lefevre saw worlds disappearing, I perceived a different analogy as I headed unstoppingly into the unknown. Why had I so easily acquiesced in his instructions? It was simple; I was bored, and wanted diversion. I was even prepared to risk dismissal from a job which I found wearisome. Had I really been placed on this earth to arrange discounts for South American railway lines? Was my mark on humanity to be the 31/8 per cent coupon on Leeds Water Works debenture stock? I had never dreamed of excitement as a young boy; unlike my comrades, my imagination was not full of dreams of marching at the head of (utterly devoted) men into a dangerous battle, emerging victorious through my courage and skill. But I had dreamed of something, and it is the more difficult to put aside dreams which are unformed, for they can never be exposed as mere childishness.

Lefevre in his squalid accommodation, with his ease among the rascals and rogues, his metamorphosis into a gentleman seemingly at will, touched a chord in me. Do not misunderstand. I was not a reckless man, and never have been. No one, I believe, brought up in the particular circumstances of my family would ever be so foolish as to take risks unnecessarily. I knew, and from an early age, how fragile is the net which prevents the respectable from falling into the abyss. The onset of illness, a misfortune in the markets, an unfortunate accident, a foolish mistake, and all can unravel. Even though my employers paid me well enough I never spent money wildly, and nurtured my pile with care and caution. I could easily foresee a time when it might be needed.

I was, accordingly, all the more fascinated by a man like Lefevre who, whatever his natural desire to stay alive, clearly approached life in a very different fashion. Not for him the caution of respectability, the fear of poverty or the desire for comfort. He was like a member of a different species, although whether superior or inferior to mine I could not tell. My sensible self told me that my way was the more responsible, that I was fitted for the age and environment in which I lived. But part of me was drawn to the irresponsibility, the recklessness of Lefevre's way. It was a contradiction in my being and, it seemed, one which Henry Wilkinson had both spotted and decided to exploit. A man more comfortable with his choices would never have been on that train.

An odd thing, memory. I remember almost every moment of that interminable train ride – the flat countryside, the stops to pick up and set down passengers, the fields of vines and crops passing by, the smell of the carriage, the lunch in the dining car, the reluctant conversation. What followed thereafter can only be recalled with an effort. It is not that I have forgotten, but that I think of it in abstract, while my memory of the journey takes me back to that carriage as if I was still there.

And yet what passed after we left the train was far more interesting, in the usual way of reckoning. Lefevre – I will continue to call him so until a more appropriate moment – began to teach me the business of self-preservation in a far more real sense. And if I never mastered all his skills, it was because never in my wildest dreams and nightmares did I ever imagine I might need them. He took me to Nancy, then a frontier town very much closer to the German border than it wished to be. Also, as he said, a good starting point for all that we had to do.