No."

"What did you say?"

"Nothin'. I couldn't get started anyway, but, besides, what was the use?
But she didn't want the old men to go; she didn't want anybody to go."

"What did she want the country to do?" Fred asked, impatiently.

"Just what it has been doin', I suppose. Just let things simmer down,
and poke along, and let them do what they like to us."

"I guess so!" said Fred. "Then, afterwhile, when they get some free time
on their hands, they'll come over and make it _really_ interesting for
us, because they know we won't do anything but talk. Yes, I guess the
way things are settling down ought to suit Dora. There isn't goin' to be
any war."

"She was pretty sure there was, though," Ramsey said, thoughtfully.

"Oh, of course she was then. We all thought so those few days."

"No. She said she thought it prob'ly wouldn't come right away, but now
it was almost sure to come sometime. She said our telegrams and all the
talk and so much feeling and everything showed her that the war thought
that was always _in_ people somewhere had been stirred up so it would
go on and on. She said she knew from the way she felt herself about the
_Lusitania_ that a feeling like that in her would never be absolutely
wiped out as long as she lived. But she said her other feeling about the
horribleness of war taught her to keep the first feeling from breaking
out, but with other people it wouldn't; and even if war didn't break
out right then, it would always be ready to, all over the country, and
sometime it would, though she was goin' to do her share to fight it,
herself, as long as she could stand. She asked me wouldn't I be one of
the ones to help her."

He paused, and after a moment Fred asked, "Well? What did you say to
that?"

"Nothin'. I started to, but--"

Again Fred thought it tactful to turn and look out the window, while the
agitation of his shoulders betrayed him.

"Go on and laugh! Well, so we stayed there quite a while, but before we
left she got kind of more like everyday, you know, the way people do. It
was half-past nine when we walked back in town, and I was commencin'
to feel kind of hungry, so I asked her if she wasn't, and she sort of
laughed and seemed to be ashamed of it, as if it were a disgrace or
something, but she said she guessed she was; so I left her by that hedge
of lilacs near the observatory and went on over to the 'Teria and the
fruit store, and got some stuffed eggs and olives and half-a