“Patriotism, but not martial patriotism,” she corrected him.  “My thought is to stop war for both countries as war, regardless of sides.  Promise me that you will not permit it!”

“I not permit it!” He smiled with the kindly patronage of a great man who sees a charming woman floundering in an attempt at logic.  “It is for the premier to say.  I merely make the machine ready.  The government says the word that makes it move.  I able to stop war!  Come, come!”

“But you can—­yes, you can with a word!” she declared positively.

“How?” he asked, amazed.  “How?” he repeated blandly.

Was she teasing him? he wondered.  What new resources of confusion had ten years and a tour around the world developed in her?  Was it possible that the Whole idea of the teachers of peace was an invention to make conversation at his expense?  If so, she carried it off with a sincerity that suggested other depths yet unsounded.

“Very easily,” she answered.  “You can tell the premier that you cannot win.  Tell him that you will break your army to pieces against the Browns’ fortifications!”

He gasped.  Then an inner voice prompted him that the cue was comedy.

“Excellent fooling—­excellent!” he said with a laugh.  “Tell the premier that I should lose when I have five million men to their three million!  What a harlequin chief of staff I should be!  Excellent fooling!  You almost had me!”

Again he laughed, though in the fashion of one who had hardly unbent his spine, while he was wishing for the old days when he might take tea with her one or two afternoons a week.  It would be a fine tonic after his isolation at the apex of the pyramid surveying the deference of the lower levels.  Then he saw that her eyes, shimmering with wonder, grew dull and her lips parted in a rigid, pale line as if she were hurt.

“You think I am joking?” she asked.

“Why, yes!”

“But I am not!  No, no, not about such a ghastly subject as a war to-day!” She was leaning toward him, hands on knee and eyes burning like coals without a spark.  “I”—­she paused as she had before she broke out with the first prophecy—­“I will quote part of our children’s oath:  ’I will not be a coward.  It is a coward who strikes first.  A brave man even after he receives a blow tries to reason with his assailant, and does not strike back until he receives a second blow.  I shall not let a burglar drive me from my house.  If an enemy tries to take my land I shall appeal to his sense of justice and reason with him, but if he then persists I shall fight for my home.  If I am victorious I shall not try to take his land but to make the most of my own.  I shall never cross a frontier to kill my fellowmen.’”

Very impressive she made the oath.  Her deliberate recital of it had the quality which justifies every word with an urgent faith.

“You see, with that teaching there can be no war,” she proceeded, “and those who strike will be weak; those who defend will be strong.”