“Oh, please don’t go,” cried Joan. “Mrs. Stopperton has just gone round to the doctor’s. She won’t be long. I’m a friend of hers.” “It’s a noble ideal,” he said. “La Patrie! The great Mother. Right or wrong, who shall dare to harm her? Yes, if it was she who rose up in her majesty and called to us.” He laughed. “What does it mean in reality: Germania, Italia, La France, Britannia? Half a score of pompous old muddlers with their fat wives egging them on: sons of the fools before them; talkers who have wormed themselves into power by making frothy speeches and fine promises. My Country!” he laughed again. “Look at them. Can’t you see their swelling paunches and their flabby faces? Half a score of ambitious politicians, gouty old financiers, bald-headed old toffs, with their waxed moustaches and false teeth. That’s what we mean when we talk about ‘My Country’: a pack of selfish, soulless, muddle-headed old men. And whether they’re right or whether they’re wrong, our duty is to fight at their bidding—to bleed for them, to die for them, that they may grow more sleek and prosperous.” He sank back on his pillow with another laugh.!

“So this is our new recruit,” she said. “She is come to bring healing to the sad, sick world—to right all the old, old wrongs.” “How do you mean ‘in his way’?” demanded Joan. It certainly, if Froude was to be trusted, could not have been the orthodox way.

And suddenly it came to her that this was her Garden of Gethsemane; and a dull laugh broke from her that she could not help. It was such a ridiculous apology for Gethsemane. There was not a corner in which one could possibly pray. Only these two iron seats, one each side of the gaunt gas lamp that glared down upon them. Even the withered shrubs were fenced off behind a railing. A ragged figure sprawled upon the bench opposite to her. It snored gently, and its breath came laden with the odour of cheap whisky. “But why should you give up your art?” persisted Joan. It was that was sticking in her mind. “I should have thought that, if only for the sake of the child, you would have gone on with it.” He explained that he had been listening to the band in the gardens, returning by the Quai d’Orsay.