“I’ll tell you who makes all the wars,” he said. “It’s you and me, my dears: we make the wars. We love them. That’s why we open our mouths and swallow all the twaddle that the papers give us; and cheer the fine, black-coated gentlemen when they tell us it’s our sacred duty to kill Germans, or Italians, or Russians, or anybody else. We are just crazy to kill something: it doesn’t matter what. If it’s to be Germans, we shout ‘A Berlin!’; and if it’s to be Russians we cheer for Liberty. I was in Paris at the time of the Fashoda trouble. How we hissed the English in the cafés! And how they glared back at us! They were just as eager to kill us. Who makes a dog fight? Why, the dog. Anybody can do it. Who could make us fight each other, if we didn’t want to? Not all the king’s horses and all the King’s men. No, my dears, it’s we make the wars. You and me, my dears.” He raised his eyes to hers. The shadow that, to her fancy, had always rested there seemed to have departed. A light had come to them.!

“Oh, she! She’s all right,” agreed the girl. “Having the time of her life: someone to look after for twenty-four hours a day that can’t help themselves.” “Good lad,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “It will be an ugly world that will come out of all this hate and anger. The Lord will want all the help that He can get.”

“Did you have a good house?” the girl asked him. “Saw you from the distance, waving your arms about. Hadn’t time to stop.” “Who told you I persuaded him?” she asked. She had listened to him without interrupting, and even now she did not speak for a while.