"It often pleases you to misunderstand," he said. "Wandel, I fancy, would take Allen's theories and make something more practical of them. Understand I am a pacifist—thorough-paced. War is folly. War is dreadful. It cannot be conceived in a healthy brain. But when a fact rises up before you you'd better face it. Wandel probably does. The Allens probably don't—don't realize that we must win this war as the only alternative to the world pacing of an autocratic foot that would crush social progress like a serpent, that would boot back the brotherhood of man, since you seem to enjoy the phrase, unthinkable years."
"After admitting that," George asked, quickly, "you can still tell me that I ought to accept the point of view of your rotten, illogical Socialists?"
"Even in this war," Bailly confessed, "most socialists are pacifists. No, they're not an elastic crowd. It amuses me that a lot of the lords of the land, leading an unthinking portion of the proletariat, will permit them to carry on their work in spite of themselves."
"I despise such theorists," George burst out. "They are unsound. They are dangerous."
Bailly smiled.
"Just the same, the very ones they want to reform are going to give them the opportunity to do it."
"They're all like Allen," George sneered, "purchasable."
Bailly shook his head, waved his pipe vehemently.
"Virtue's flaws don't alter its really fundamental quality."
"Then you agree all Socialists are knaves or fools," George stormed.