Alix saw humanity as a great mass-meeting, men and women, 'clergymen, lawyers, lords and thieves,' hand in hand, lifting together one confused voice, crying for peace, peace, where there was no peace. Where there could not yet be, nor ever had been, peace, because ... because of what? That really seemed the question to be solved. Because, one supposed, of some anti-peace elements in every country, in every class, in every interest, nay, in every human being, that somehow subverted and hindered the great desire. An odd world, certainly, and paradoxical, and curiously tragic. But lit by glimmers of hope.... 3 More and more through that evening Alix came to believe that these so-called Pacificists (idiotic name--as if every one wasn't Pacificist) really _had_ found a way, really had, if not exactly their hands on the ropes, anyhow their feet on a road that might possibly lead somewhere. It was the same rather breathless feeling of possible ways out, or in, that she had about the Church sometimes. Only sometimes; for at other times she happened on people who belonged to the Church who made her feel that there were no roads out, or in, or anywhere, but only dull enclosures, leading nowhere; and she hadn't yet attained to the impersonal idealism Daphne urged on her (so necessary, so difficult a thing) which could swallow people for the sake of the causes they stood for. She attached too much importance to people. She was glad when a young, keen-faced, humorous woman, with a charming voice, began to speak about Continuous Mediation without Armistice. A fascinating subject, competently handled. A continuous conference of the neutral nations, to convey the ever-changing desires of the belligerents to one another, to inquire into the principles of international justice and permanent peace underlying them, to discuss, to air proposals, to suggest, to promote understanding between belligerents. It couldn't, anyhow, do much harm, and might do much good. It would express the views of impartial observers (are any observers impartial, Alix wondered?) on these vexed questions; it would express through intermediaries the views of the peace-seekers in each warring nation to the peace-makers in the others, now that they were hindered from direct speech together. For so many thousands in the enemy countries are longing for peace; there must be no mistake about that. Of course, thought Alix, impatient again. How should there be any mistake about so obvious a thing? The only difficulty was that each country longed for peace on its own terms; peace, as they would say, with honour; and no country liked its enemies' terms. This continuous mediation business would perhaps draw them nearer together, make them see more nearly eye to eye. It certainly seemed sound. 4 'They're talking sense all right,' said one young officer to another, behind Alix.