"Just marry an American citizen," said Mr. Direck, with his face beaming with ingenuous self-approval. "Then you'd be safe, and I'd not have to worry."
"Because we're in for a stiff war!" cried Cissie, and Direck perceived he had blundered.
"Because we may be invaded!" she said, and Mr. Direck's sense of error deepened.
"I vow—" she began.
"No!" cried Mr. Direck, and held out a hand.
There was a moment of crisis.
"Never will I desert my country—while she is at war," said Cissie, reducing her first fierce intention, and adding as though she regretted her concession, "Anyhow."
"Then it's up to me to end the war, Cissie," said Mr. Direck, trying to get her back to a less spirited attitude.
But Cissie wasn't to be got back so easily. The war was already beckoning to them in the cottage, and drawing them down from the auditorium into the arena.
"This is the rightest war in history," she said. "If I was an American I should be sorry to be one now and to have to stand out of it. I wish I was a man now so that I could do something for all the decency and civilisation the Germans have outraged. I can't understand how any man can be content to keep out of this, and watch Belgium being destroyed. It is like looking on at a murder. It is like watching a dog killing a kitten...."