The girl put both her hands to her breast. “The war!” she said. “Let us forget the years when we all went mad. It was a madness of hate and of lies and of ignorance--on both sides. The poor people in all countries suffered for the sins of the wicked men who made this war against our will and called out our evil passions. The wicked men in England were as bad as those in Germany. Now it is for good people to build up a new world out of the ruins that war made, the ruin of hearts.” She asked a direct question of Brand, earnestly. “Are you one of those who will go on hating?” Brand hesitated. He could not forget many things. He knew, so he told me, that he had not yet killed the old hatred that had made him a sniper in No Man’s Land. Many times it surged up again. He could not forgive the Germans for many cruelties. To this girl, then, he hedged a little. “The future must wipe out the past. The peace must not be for vengeance.” At those last words the blue eyes of Elsa von Kreuzenach lighted up gladly. “That is the old English spirit! I have said to my mother and father a thousand times, ‘England is generous at heart. She loves fair play. Now that victory is hers she will put away base passions and make a noble peace that will help us out of our agony and ruin. All our hope is with England, and with the American President, who is the noblest man on earth.’” “And your father and mother?” asked Brand. “What do they say?” The girl smiled rather miserably. “They belong to the old school. Franz and I are of the younger generation... My father denounces England as the demon behind all the war-devils, and little mother finds it hard to forgive England for joining the war against us, and because the English Army killed Heinrich. You must be patient with them.” She spoke as though Brand belonged already to their family life and would need great tact. She moved towards the door, and stood framed there in its white woodwork, a pretty figure. “We have two maidservants for this great house,” she said. “The war has made us poor. Truda and Gretchen they are called. They are both quarrelling for the pleasure of waiting on you. They are both frightfully excited to have an English officer in the house.” “Queer!” said Brand, laughing. “Why queer?” asked Elsa von Kreuzenach. “I am a little excited, too.” She made a half-curtsey, like an early Victorian girl; and then closed his door, and Brand was sorry, as he told me quite frankly, that he was left alone. “The girl’s a pretty piece of Dresden china,” he said. When I chaffed him with a “Take care, old lad!” he only growled and muttered, “Oh, to hell with that! I suppose I can admire a pretty thing, even if it’s made in Germany?”