“I wish I’d taken more interest in politics when I was young,” said Mrs. Phillips. “Of course, when I was a girl, women weren’t supposed to.” “I’ve never been able myself,” he continued, “to understand the Lord’s enthusiasm for David. I suppose it was the Psalms that did it.”!

They travelled leisurely through Holland and the Rhine land, and that helped a little: the new scenes and interests; and in Switzerland they discovered a delightful little village in an upland valley with just one small hotel, and decided to stay there for a while, so as to give themselves time to get their letters. They took long walks and climbs, returning tired and hungry, looking forward to their dinner and the evening talk with the few other guests on the veranda. The days passed restfully in that hidden valley. The great white mountains closed her in. They seemed so strong and clean. Joan felt her knees trembling. A cold, creeping fear was taking possession of her. Why, she could not understand. She must have been mistaken. People don’t make-up their tongues. It must have been the lips. And even if not—if the woman had licked the brush! It was a silly trick people do. Perhaps she liked the taste. She pulled herself together and tapped at the door.

“You have got to consider the cost of refusal,” she said. “His offer wasn’t help or neutrality: it was help or opposition by every means in his power. He left me in no kind of doubt as to that. He’s not used to being challenged and he won’t be squeamish. You will have the whole of his Press against you, and every other journalistic and political influence that he possesses. He’s getting a hold upon the working classes. The Sunday Post has an enormous sale in the manufacturing towns; and he’s talking of starting another. Are you strong enough to fight him?” “It has been responsible for most of man’s miseries,” he answered. “Every world’s conqueror meant to make it happy after he had finished knocking it about. We are all born with it, thanks to the devil.” He shifted his position and regarded her with critical eyes. “You’ve got it badly,” he said. “I can see it in the tilt of your chin and the quivering of your nostrils. You beware of it.” Greyson spoke with an enthusiasm that was unusual to him. So many of our wars had been mean wars—wars for the wrong; sordid wars for territory, for gold mines; wars against the weak at the bidding of our traders, our financiers. “Shouldering the white man’s burden,” we called it. Wars for the right of selling opium; wars to perpetuate the vile rule of the Turk because it happened to serve our commercial interests. This time, we were out to play the knight; to save the smaller peoples; to rescue our once “sweet enemy,” fair France. Russia was the disturbing thought. It somewhat discounted the knight-errant idea, riding stirrup to stirrup beside that barbarian horseman. But there were possibilities about Russia. Idealism lay hid within that sleeping brain. It would be a holy war for the Kingdom of the Peoples. With Germany freed from the monster of blood and iron that was crushing out her soul, with Russia awakened to life, we would build the United States of Europe. Even his voice was changed. Joan could almost fancy it was some excited schoolboy that was talking.