ostrils quiver and a look come into her eyes--"to ask your Suffrage
friends to bring pressure to bear on their Government to bring this
d-r-r-eadful War to a just peace. That is all we ask." But Vivie
said "with all her own private grudge against the present ministry
she felt _au fond_ she was _British_; she must range herself in time
of war with her own people."

Mrs. Warren went much farther. She was not very voluble nowadays.
The German occupation of her villa had given her a mental and
physical shock from which she never recovered. She often sat quite
silent and rather huddled at meal times and looked the old woman
now. In such a conversation as this she roused herself and her voice
took an aggressive tone. "My daughter write to her friends to ask
them to obstruct the government at such a time as this? _Never!_ I'd
disown her if she did, I'd repudiate her! She may have had her own
turn-up with 'em. I was quite with her there. But that, so to
speak, was only a domestic quarrel. We're British all through, and
don't you forget it--sir--(she added deprecatingly): British _all
through_ and we're goin' to beat Germany yet, _you'll_ see. The
British navy never _has_ been licked nor won't be, this time."

Colonel von Giesselin did not insist. He seemed depressed himself at
times, and far from elated at the victories announced in his own
newspapers. He would in the dreary autumn evenings show them the
photographs of his wife--a sweet-looking woman--and his two
solid-looking, handsome children, and talk with rapture of his home
life. Why, indeed, was there this War! His heart like his Emperor's
bled for these unhappy Belgians. But it was all due to the
Macchiavellian policy of "Sir Grey and Asquiss." If Germany had not
felt herself surrounded and barred from all future expansion of
trade and influence she would not have felt forced to attack France
and invade Belgium. Why, see! All the time they were talking,
barbarous Russia, egged on by England, was ravaging East Prussia!

Then, in other moods, he would lament the war and the policy of
Prussia. How he had loved England in the days when he was military
attache there. He had once wanted to marry an Englishwoman, a Miss
Fraser, a so handsome daughter of a Court Physician.

"Why, that must have been Honoria, my former partner," said Vivie,
finding an intense joy in this link of memory. And she told much of
her history to the sentimental Colonel, who was conceiving for her a