“I see you are one of us,” she said.  “What I call one of the Jolly Fraternity.  No, Ohio is still enjoying peace.  But—­if you follow me—­from the States peace will come; there we must fix our hopes.  If we can get those millions of brothers and sisters of ours ’across the duck-pond’—­as I call it—­to see its urgency, peace must come.  For brothers and sisters they are, you know; patriotism will come in time to be considered a vice.  How can one’s soul—­if you take my meaning—­be affected by the latitude and longitude in which one’s body was born?  From the States the truth shall come, salvation shall dawn in the west.  Listen to me trying to be poetic, it makes me laugh.”

One noticed that it did.

“War is so reasonless as to be funny,” she said.

“But you haven’t told me yet about the little chance that you thought would tickle Olympus,” said Kew.

“You’re laughing at me,” said Mrs. Russell.  “But I don’t mind, for I laugh at myself.  I like you.  Shake.”

Kew immediately thought her a nice woman, though peculiar.

Mr. Russell looked in and saw the Shake in progress.  He murmured something and withdrew hurriedly.  For a moment they could hear his agitated voice in the passage reciting Milton to his Hound.

“Do listen to my husband, never silent,” said Mrs. Russell.  “Did you ever see a man like him?”

There is no real answer to this sort of question, so Kew said “Yo,” which is always safe.  Then he added, “Do tell me about the little chance.”

“This was the little chance,” smiled Mrs. Russell.  “We ought to have had a tremendously successful peace-meeting in a certain town in Ohio.  We had every reason to expect three thousand people, and we thought of proposing the re-naming of the town—­calling it Peace.  But the little chance was a printer’s error—­the advertisement gave the date wrong.  A crowd turned up at the empty hall, and two days later, when we arrived, they were so tired of us that they booed our demonstration.  Just the stupidity of an inky printer between us and success.”

“Do you mean to say that but for that we should have had peace by now?” asked Kew in a reverent voice.

“You never know,” said Mrs. Russell.  “That meeting might have been the match to light the flame of peace all over the world.  It’s bitterly and satirically funny, isn’t it, what Fate will do.  Ha-ha-ha.”

Cousin Gustus laughed hysterically in chorus, and then said that his head ached, and that he thought he would go to bed early.  Anonyma led him away.

“Please don’t make peace for a week or two yet,” begged Kew.  “Let me see what I can do first.  I am going to-morrow.”

“How foolish of you,” said Mrs. Russell.  “If you like, I believe I have enough influence to get you to America instead.”

“I think I like France best,” said Kew.  “I don’t feel as if I could be content anywhere short of France just now.”