doctor's home, winding up in a tone of
reproach:

"And are you on the side of the English, Toni? You, a man of advanced
ideas?..."

The pilot scratched his beard with an expression of perplexity,
searching for the elusive words. He knew what he ought to say. He had
read it in the writings of gentlemen who knew quite as much as his
captain; besides, he had thought a great deal about this matter in his
solitary pacing on the bridge.

"I am where I ought to be. I am with France...."

He expressed this thought sluggishly, with stutterings and half-formed
words. France was the country of the great Revolution, and for that
reason he considered it as something to which he belonged, uniting its
faith with that of his own person.

"And I do not need to say more. As to England...."

Here he made a pause like one who rests and gathers all his forces
together for a difficult leap.

"There always has to be one nation on top," he continued. "We hardly
amount to anything at present and, according to what I have read, Spain
was once mistress of the entire world for a century and a half. Once we
were everywhere; now we are in the soup. Then came France's turn. Now
it is England's.... It doesn't bother me that one nation places itself
above the rest. The thing that interests me is what that nation
represents,--the fashion it, will set."

Ferragut was concentrating his attention in order to comprehend what
Toni wished to say.

"If England triumphs," the pilot continued, "_Liberty_ will be the
fashion. What does their haughtiness amount to with me, if there always
has to be one dominating Nation?... The nations will surely copy the
victor.... England, so they say, is really a republic that prefers to
pay for the luxury of a king for its grand ceremonials. With her, peace
would be inevitable, the government managed by the people, the
disappearance of the great armies, the true civilization. If Germany
triumphs, we shall live as though we were in barracks. Militarism will
govern everything. We shall bring up our children, not that they may
enjoy life, but that they may become soldiers and go forth to kill from
their very youth. Might as the only Right, that is the German
method,--a return to barbarous times under the mask of civilization."

He was silent an instant, as though mentally recapitulating all that he
had said in order to convince himself that he had not left any
forgotten idea in the corners of his cranium. Again he s