"You speak in fables," she said, "it's like the nonsense in the panicky stories. There is no one in England nowadays who seriously believes in that kind of war. I do not think you can do so yourself. Now, really, did you ever see a battlefield in your life, Mr. Faber?"
He looked at her with eyes half shut.
"I was in Port Arthur the night the ships were struck. I saw the big fighting at Liaoyang. Go back farther and I'll tell you stories of Venezuela and the Philippines, which should be written down in red. I'm a child of war—my father died at a barricade in Paris three days before the Commune fell. A diamond of a man saved my mother and took her out to America, where I was born. There's war in the very marrow of my bones—I live for it as other men for women and children. Should you ask such a man to join such a League? I'll put it squarely to you. Now tell me the truth."
The intensity of the appeal startled her. The method of her life in the parsonage at Hampstead would have prompted a platitude of the platforms, some retort about the progress of humanity, and the need for social advance. But it seemed impossible to say such things to John Faber. Her courage ran down as ice before a fire; she was wholly embarrassed and without resource.
"Come," he repeated, "you owe me the admission. Should the request have been made to me?"
"No, indeed—and yet I will not say that anyone would be dishonoured by it."
"Did I suggest the contrary?"
"I think your idols false."
"They are the idols of human nature—not mine."
"We could say the same of the primitive savages. Why should we have advanced beyond the battle-axe and the club?"