"No," said Dan; "and you have made me a better patriot."
She turned to him, with a little smile.
"And now I think of it," she added, "it was my story I told you, after all!"
"Your story helps me to understand Poland's. That is the way history should be written."
"I think so, too. There is not enough in most histories of the common people. And my father says it is only they who really matter. He has thought very deeply. It is his dream to make all other countries like America—free, peaceful, industrious—only better than America has yet become, in that poverty and inequality and injustice will be abolished."
"A magnificent dream," Dan agreed, with a smile; "but impossible of accomplishment, I'm afraid."
"No, it is not impossible!" she cried quickly. "It will be accomplished, and by him!"
Dan looked at her curiously. Her eyes were blazing, and she spoke with a conviction, with an enthusiasm, which puzzled him.
"Tell me something about your father," he suggested. "You said he was the most wonderful man in the world."
"And I meant it. Could anything be more wonderful than to force all the nations of the earth to break up their navies, to dismantle their forts, to disband their armies? Could anything be more wonderful than to put an end, once for all, to this waste of life and treasure, which is eating at the heart of the world? Could anything be more wonderful than to turn all these armies of useless men back into honest and useful labour? Then no longer would you see women gathering the harvest, or struggling under cruel burdens, or cleaning the streets, or spreading manure over the fields! No, nor walking the pavements of the cities! Would you not say that the man who brought all this about was a wonderful man?"