“Pap for babes!” said Susan scornfully. “Life is war. Peace doesn’t exist. We’re all savages, and must obey the law of the savage. Strike first and quickest, before your enemy gets his chance. No pity, no forgiveness, no forgetfulness. That’s my creed.”
“It was not the Master’s creed,” said Bertram. He told his sister of the words spoken by their mother as she lay dying. “Work for Peace!”
“I’m pledged by the promise I made then,” he said. “I’m dedicated to work for Peace.”
Susan’s eyes filled with tears, but she shook her head and said it was all useless. How could there be peace when the world was stuffed with cruelty? Could there ever be peace between France and Germany? Never in a thousand or a million years. Or ever between Ireland and England, after what had happened, and was happening? Not as long as an Irish boy lived to remember the history of his race.
“I’m dedicated too,” she said. “By the blood of the man I married. In private or in public, by spoken word and written word, I’ve pledged myself to work against England, so that the British Empire will be dragged down from its place, and fall in ruin. I’m only one of England’s enemies, and a poor, weak creature, but I can put in a word here and a word there. It all helps, and England already has the whole world against her. France hates her worse than Germany.”
“It’s madness and wickedness,” said Bertram. “You’re hysterical, my dear, or I couldn’t forgive you for the words you speak.”
She flared up at him, and called him a crawling sentimentalist, who tried to make the best of both worlds and stand on both sides of the hedge at the same time.
“You’re tricked by soppy sentiment. Just as Joyce has tricked you. Are you still loyal to her, may I ask?”
“I want to be,” said Bertram.
She laughed, with a sound of mockery.