“Well,” he said, “Colburn prob'ly wouldn't want to hurt your feelings or anything. Colburn--”
“He? He didn't! I haven't the faintest personal interest in what he did.”
“Oh!” said Ramsey. “Well, excuse me; I thought prob'ly you were sore because he'd jollied you about this pacifist stuff, and then--”
“No!” she said, sharply. “I'm not thinking of his having agreed with _me_ and fooling _me_ about it. He just wanted to make a pleasant impression on a girl, and said anything he thought would please her. I don't care whether he does things like that or not. What I care about is that the _principle_ didn't reach him and that he mocked it! I don't care about a petty treachery to me, personally, but I--”
Fraternal loyalty could not quite brook this. “Brother Colburn is a perfectly honor'ble man,” said Ramsey, solemnly. “He is one of the most honor'ble men in this--”
“Of course!” she cried. “Oh, can't I make you understand that I'm not condemning him for a little flattery to me? I don't care two straws for his showing that _I_ didn't influence him. He doesn't interest me, please understand.”
Ramsey was altogether perplexed. “Well, I don't see what makes you go for him so hard, then.”
“I don't _condemn_ him for it,” she insisted, despairingly. “Don't you see the difference? I'm not condemning anybody; I'm only lamenting.
“My golly!” Ramsey exclaimed. “You don't think those Dutchmen were right to drown babies and--”
“No! I think they were ghastly murderers! I think they were detestable and fiendish and monstrous and--”
“Well, then, my goodness! What do you want?”
“I want Christianity!” she cried. “I can't think of the Germans without hating them, and so to-day, when all the world is hating them, I keep myself from thinking of them as much as I can. Already half the world is full of war; you want to go to war to make things right, but it won't; it will only make more war!”
“Don't you see what you've done, you boys?” she said. “Don't you see what you've done with your absurd telegram? That started the rest; they thought they _all_ had to send telegrams like that.”
“Even they mightn't have thought of it if it hadn't been for the first one. Vengeance is the most terrible thought; once you put it into people's minds that they ought to have it, it runs away with them.”