Day by day we have grown to like him better and better.
He has saved your life, Dick. He has brought you back to us.
Think what it is that you purpose!"
"It is what every soldier has to face," Richard declared.
"You men drive me crazy with your foolish ideas!" Philippa cried
desperately. "The war is in your brains, I think. You would
carry it from the battlefields into your daily life. Because two
great countries are at war, is everything to go by--chivalry?--all
the finer, sweeter feelings of life? If you two met on the
battlefield, it would be different. Here in my drawing-room, I
will not have this black demon of the war dragged in as an excuse
for murder! Take Dick away, Helen!" she begged. "Mr. Lessingham is
leaving to-night. I will pledge my word that until then he remains
a harmless citizen."
"Women don't understand these things, Philippa--" Richard began.
"Thank heavens we understand them better than you men!" Philippa
interrupted fiercely. "You have but one idea--to strike--the
narrow idea of men that breeds warfare. I tell you that if ever
universal peace comes, if ever the nations are taught the horror
of this lust for blood, this criminal outrage against civilisation,
it is the women who will become the teachers, because amongst your
instincts the brutish ones of force are the first to leap to the
surface at the slightest provocation.
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