He came to the longest of all his pauses here, and the awful gravity of the audience almost suffocated him. “Well,” he concluded, “it don't look right to me.” “Four minutes!” the chairman announced, for Ramsey's pauses had worn away a great deal more of this terrible interval than had his eloquence. “Opening statement for the negative: Miss D. Yocum. Four minutes.” As Dora began to speak, Ramsey experienced a little relief, but only a little--about the same amount of relief as that felt by a bridegroom when it is the bride's turn to “respond,” not really relief at all, but merely the slight relaxation of a continuing strain. The audience now looked at Ramsey no more than people look at a bridegroom, but he failed to perceive any substantial mitigation of his frightful conspicuousness. He had not the remotest idea of what he had said in setting forth his case for Germany, and he knew that it was his duty to listen closely to Dora, in order to be able to refute her argument when his two-minute closing speech fell due but he was conscious of little more than his own condition. His legs had now gone wild beyond all devilry, and he had to keep shifting his weight from one to the other in order even to hope that their frenzy might escape general attention. He realized that Dora was speaking rapidly and confidently, and that somewhere in his ill-assembled parts lurked a familiar bit of him that objected to her even more than usual; but she had used half of her time, at least, before he was able to gather any coherent meaning from what she was saying. Even then he caught only a fragment, here and there, and for the rest--so far as Ramsey was concerned--she might as well have been reciting the Swedish alphabet. In spite of the rather startling feebleness of her opponent's statement, Dora went at her task as earnestly as if it were to confute some monster of casuistry. “Thus, having demonstrated that _all_ war is wrong,” she said, approaching her conclusion, “it is scarcely necessary to point out that whatever the actual circumstances of the invasion, and whatever the status of the case in international law, or by reason of treaty, or the German oath to respect the neutrality of Belgium, which of course was grossly and dishonorably violated--all this, I say, ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, all this is beside the point of morals. Since, as I have shown, _all_ war is wrong, the case may be simplified as follows: All war is morally wrong. _Quod erat demonstrandum_. Germany invaded Belgium. Invasion is war. Germany, therefore, did moral wrong. Upon the legal side, as I began by pointing out, Germany confessed in the Reichstag the violation of law. Therefore, Germany was justified in the invasion neither morally nor legally; but was both morally and legally wrong and evil. Ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, I await the refutation of my opponent!”