Billy entered reading the headlines announcing Vassar’s new programme of military preparation. Virginia flushed and gazed at the announcement with increasing excitement. The name of John Vassar had caused a flush before the announcement of his bill had made an impression. Her handsome Congressman neighbor, though they had never formally met, had for some months past been a disturbing factor in a life of hitherto serene indifference to men. That he should have antagonized in this bill her well known position as the uncompromising advocate of peace and of universal disarmament was a shock. His proposal to arm the American Democracy came as a slap in her face. She felt it a personal affront. Of course she had no right to such feeling. John Vassar was nothing to her! She had only seen him pass her window three times during the year. And yet the longer she gazed at the announcement the more furious she became. At least he might have consulted her as the leading public-spirited woman in his district on this measure of such transcendent importance. He had not done so, for a simple reason. He knew that she opposed militarism as the first article of her life faith. Her hand closed on the paper in a grip of resentment. She made up her mind instantly to force his hand on the suffrage issue. She would show him that she had some power in his District. Her mood of absorbed anger was suddenly broken by Billy’s joyous cry: “Hurrah for John Vassar, sis. Me for West Point! Will you make him appoint me?” She turned in sudden rage and boxed her young brother’s ears, smiled at his surprise, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She boxed his ears for crying hurrah for Vassar. She kissed him for the compliment of her supposed power over the coming statesman. To hide her confusion she began at once a heated argument over the infamies of a military régime. The quarrel broke the peaceful scene of a game of checkers between the father and mother in the sitting-room, and brought the older people into the hall: “In heaven’s name, Virginia!” her father exclaimed. “What is the matter?” “Read it”--she answered angrily, thrusting the paper into his hand. The Grand Army veteran read with sparkling eyes. “Good!” he shouted. “That’s what I say, father!” Billy echoed. “It’s absurd,” Virginia protested. “War on this country is impossible. It’s unthinkable--” The old soldier suddenly seized her hand. “Impossible, is it? Come with me a minute, Miss!” He drew her into the library followed by Billy--the mother striving gently to keep the peace. Holland led his eloquent daughter to the rack above the center bookcase and took from its place his army musket. “That’s what they said, my girl, in ’61. Here’s the answer. That’s what your grandmother said to your grandfather. That’s why we’ve bungled every war we ever fought and paid for it in rivers of blood!”