"How is this, little sister? you are anxious to have people fight, and
you speak disrespectfully of war!"

She turned and faced him, valiantly as ever: "It is true; I abhor it,
because it is an abomination and an injustice. It may be simply
because I am a woman, but the thought of such butchery sickens me. Why
cannot nations adjust their differences without shedding blood?"

Jean, the good fellow, seconded her with a nod of the head, and
nothing to him, too, seemed easier--to him, the unlettered man--than
to come together and settle matters after a fair, honest talk; but
Maurice, mindful of his scientific theories, reflected on the
necessity of war--war, which is itself existence, the universal law.
Was it not poor, pitiful man who conceived the idea of justice and
peace, while impassive nature revels in continual slaughter?

"That is all very fine!" he cried. "Yes, centuries hence, if it shall
come to pass that then all the nations shall be merged in one;
centuries hence man may look forward to the coming of that golden age;
and even in that case would not the end of war be the end of humanity?
I was a fool but now; we must go and fight, since it is nature's law."
He smiled and repeated his brother-in-law's expression: "And besides,
who can tell?"

He saw things now through the mirage of his vivid self-delusion, they
came to his vision distorted through the lens of his diseased nervous
sensibility.

"By the way," he continued cheerfully, "what do you hear of our cousin
Gunther? You know we have not seen a German yet, so you can't look to