e diplomatic history of the war is known it will be found
that the Gray government struck as a matter of cold, deliberate
intention. Bodlapoo was only an excuse to carry out a plan of conquest."

"So Partow has taught the Browns," she answered stubbornly. "That is one
partisan view. What is theirs? What is Westerling teaching the Grays?"

"Marta--really, I--"

"What a smashing argument _really_ is! You see that you really are not
for peace, but for war. But won't you ask Partow to do one thing, if he
still insists that he is for peace? I wonder if he will chuckle or laugh
at my suggestion, or will he grin or roar? Though you know that he will
do them all, ask him to send out a flag of truce to the Grays and beg
them to stay their operations while his appeal--an appeal with a little
of the Christ spirit in it, from one Christian nation to another to stop
the murder--is read to the Gray soldiers and ours; to those who have to
suffer and die! Oh, I'd like to help write that appeal, telling the
women what I have seen! Do you think if it were given to the world that
the Grays would still come on? Ask him, Lanny, ask him to make that
simple human appeal, as brother to brother, to the court of all
humanity! Ask him, please, Lanny!"

"I shall, Marta!" he replied seriously, in respect for her seriousness
throbbing with the abandoned play of her vitality, though he knew how
fruitless the request would be. He loved her the more for this outburst.
He loved her for her quick sympathies with any one in trouble, whether
Feller or Minna; for all of her inconsistencies which were so real to
her; for her dreams, her visions, her impulses, because she tried to put
them in action, and he envied Feller for having fought in defence of her
house. How could he expect her to interest herself exclusively in him as
one human being when all human beings interested her so profoundly? If
the world were peopled with Martas and their disciples then her proposal
would be practicable.

"That's fine of you, Lanny!" she said. "You've taken it like a good
stoic, this loss of your thousandth chance. You really believed in it,
didn't you?"

"Forgotten already, like the many other thousandth chances that have
failed," he replied cheerfully. "One of the virtues of Partow's steel
automatons is that, being tearless as well as passionless, they never
cry over spilt milk. And now," he went on soberly, "we must be saying
good-by."

"Good-by, Lanny? Why, wha