ou insist."

The Countess had turned to me in amazement.

"Treason!" she repeated, in an unsteady voice. "Is it treason for a
small community to live quietly here in the Alsatian hills, harming
nobody, asking nothing save freedom of thought? Is it treason for a
woman of the world to renounce the world? Is it treason for her to
live an unostentatious life and use her fortune to aid others to live?
Treason! Monsieur, the word has an ugly ring to me. I am a soldier's
daughter!"

There was something touchingly illogical in the last words--this young
apostle of peace naively displaying her credentials as though the mere
word "soldier" covered everything.

"Your government insults us all," said Bazard, between his teeth.

Mademoiselle Elven leaned forward, her blue eyes shining angrily.

"Because I have learned that the boundaries of nations are not the
frontiers of human hearts, am I a traitor? Because I know no country
but the world, no speech but the universal speech that one reads in a
brother's eyes, because I know no barriers, no boundaries, no limits
to human brotherhood, am I a traitor?"

She made an exquisite gesture with half-open arms; all the poetry of
the Theatre Francais was in it.

"Look at me! I had all that life could give, save freedom, and that I
have now--freedom in thought, in speech, in action, freedom to love as
friends love, freedom to love as lovers love. Ah, more! freedom from
caste, from hate and envy and all suspicion, freedom to give, freedom
to receive, freedom in life and in death! Am I a traitor? What do I
betray? Shame on your Emperor!"

The young Countess, too, had risen in her earnestness and had laid one
slender, sun-tanned hand upon the table.

"War?" she said. "What is this war to us? The Emperor? What is he to
us? We who have set a watch on the world's outer ramparts, guarding
the white banner of universal brotherhood! What is this war to us!"

"Are you not a native of France?" I asked, bluntly.

"I am a native of the world, monsieur."

"Do you mean to say that you care nothing for your own birthland?" I
demanded, sharply.

"I love the world--all of it--every inch--and if France is part of
the world, so is this Prussia that we are teaching our poor peasants
to hate."

"Madame," said I, "the women of France to-day think differently. Our
Creator did not make love of country a trite virtue, but a passion,
and set it in our bodies along with our other passions. If in you i