“I told my husband so. It was too much to ask. He's a colonel, you know—an Anglo-Indian—and always goes straight for what he wants, never hesitating. He would make me ask you; ... but at least we have your good wishes, Lord John, haven't we?”
“Indeed, yes.”
“The motto of our little village branches,” she added as she [rose, “is] Si vis pacem, para bellum. Or, in some villages, Si vis bellum, para pacem. Both so true, aren't they? Now which do you think is the best?”
Lord John Lester looked down at her in silence, momentarily at a loss for an answer.
“Really, my dear lady, ... I'm afraid I don't like either at all. In fact, neither in any way expresses the ideals or principles of the League.”
She looked disappointed.
“Now, you don't say so! But those are the lines we're founding our branches on. One has to be so careful, don't you think, or a branch may get on the wrong lines, with all these peace cranks about. And every branch has its influence. They're ignorant in these lake villages, but they do mean well, and they're only anxious to learn. If only you would come and tell our little organising band how we ought to start them!”
Lord John, having taken the lady in, from her topmost purple feathers to her pin-like heels, decided that, in all probability, she had not got a League mind. And she and the Anglo-Indian colonel (who probably had not got this type of mind either, for Anglo-Indian colonels so exceedingly often have another) were going to start branches of the League of Nations Union all up the lake, to be so many centres of noxious, watered-down, meaningless League velleity, of the type which he, Lord John, found peculiarly repugnant. Perhaps, after all, it might be his duty to go and say a few wholesome words to the little organising band assembled in the office off the Rue Croix d'Or. Yes; it was obviously his duty, and not to be shirked. With a sigh he looked at his watch. It need not take him more than half an hour, all told.
“Very well,” he said. “If you would find a very few words of any use——”