tion,
received an identical answer, and fell silent, too. Only Mrs. Alston
appeared to detect no change in the world, remaining cheerfully imperial
as if alarms couldn't possibly approach her abruptly.

Even to George such a scene, sharing one planet with the violences of
Europe, appeared contradictory. The fancifully garbed undergraduates,
who ran along the bank; the string of automobiles on the towpath
opposite; the white and gleaming pleasure boats in the canal; the shells
themselves, with coloured oar-blades that flashed in the sunlight; most
of all the green frame for this pleasantly exciting contest had an air
of telling him that everything unseen was rumour, dream stuff; either
that, or else that the seen was visionary, while in those remote places
existed the only material world, the revolting and essential realities.

Bailly at last interrupted his revery, with his long, thin arm making a
gesture that included the athletes; the running, youthful partisans.

"How many are we going to lose or get back with twisted minds?"

"Keep quiet," his wife said in a panic.

Mrs. Alston laughed pleasantly.

"Don't worry. Woodrow will keep us out of it."

XV

Back in the little study Bailly expressed his doubt.

"He may do it now, but later----"

"Remember you're not going, George," Mrs. Bailly cried.

"I think not."

She patted his hand, while Bailly looked on with his old expression of
doubt and disapproval. When Mrs. Bailly had left them, George told the
tutor of Wandel's surprising venture, asking his opinion.

"It's hard to form one," Bailly admitted. "He's always puzzled me. Would
it surprise you if I said I think he at least has grafted on his brain
some of Allen's generous views?"

"Oh, come, sir. You can't make war an ideal expression of the
brotherhood of man. Far better that all men should be suspicious
strangers."

Bailly drew noisily at his pipe.

"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
brotherho