t the Grays! The same, idea--the fighting nature, the
brute nature of man--animated both sides. Had the Browns really tried
for peace? Had they, in the spirit of her oath, appealed to justice and
reason? Why hadn't their premier before all the world said to the
premier of the Grays, as one honest, friendly neighbor to another over a
matter of dispute:

"We do not want war. We know you outnumber us, but we know you would
not take advantage of that. If we are wrong we will make amends; if you
are wrong we know that you will. Let us not play tricks in secret to
gain points, we civilized nations, but be frank with each other. Let us
not try to irritate each other or to influence our people, but to
realize how much we have in common and that our only purpose is common
progress and happiness."

But no. This was against the precedent of Cain, who probably got Abel
into a cul-de-sac, handed down to the keeping of the Roman aristocrat,
the baron, the first Galland, and the fat, pompous little man. It would
deprive armies of an occupation. It would make statesmanship too simple
and naive to have the distinction of craft, which gave one man the right
to lead another. Both sides had to act in the old fashion of mutual
suspicion and chicanery.

She was overwrought in the fervor of her principles; she was in an
anguish of protest. Her spirit, in arms against an overwhelming fact
that was wrong, sinful, ridiculous, demanded some expression in action.
Now she was half running, both running away from horror and toward
horror; in a shuttle of resolutions and emotions: a being at war with
war. Passing the head of the procession, she soon had the castle road to
herself, except for orderlies on motor-cycles and horseback, until a
train of automobile wagons loaded with household goods roared by. The
full orchestra of war was playing right and left: crashing, high-pitched
gun-booms near at hand; low-pitched, reverberating gun-booms in the
distance. At the turn of the road in front of the castle she saw the
gunners of the batteries that Feller had watched approaching making an
emplacement for their guns in a field of carrots that had not yet been
harvested. The roots of golden yellow were mixed with the tossing
spadefuls of earth.

A shadow like a great cloud in mad flight shot over the earth, and with
the gunners she looked up to see a Gray dirigible. Already it was
turning homeward; already it had gained its object as a scout. On the
fr