"It is all savage," Alma said, crisply and coolly, "We are all murderers. We are teaching our men to run Germans through with bayonets, and trying to make ourselves think that they aren't breaking the sixth commandment. Yet in times of peace, when a man kills he goes to the electric chair--" It was Derry who answered that. "If in times of peace I heard you scream and saw you set upon by thieves and murderers, and stood with my hands in my pockets while you were tortured and killed, would you call my non-interference laudable?" "That's different." "It is the same thing. The only difference lies in the fact that thousands of defenceless women and little children are calling. Would you have the nation stand with its hands in its pockets?" Alma, cold as ice, challenged him: "Why should they call to us? We'll be sorry some day that we went into it." Out of a dead silence, a man said: "Not long ago, I went into a sweet shop in England. A woman came in with two children. They were rosy children and round. They carried muffs. "She bought candy for them--and when she gave it to them, I saw that they had--no hands--" A gasp went round the table. "They were Belgian children." That night Jean said to Derry with a sternness which set strangely upon her, "We must have friends in our House of Dreams. The latchstrings will always be out for people like Emily and Marion, and Drusilla, and Ulrich and Ralph--" "Yes--" "But not for Hilda and Alma." THE NINTH DAY It was on the ninth day that Derry waked his wife at dawn. "I've ordered the car. It rained in the night, and now--oh, there was never such a morning; there may never be such a morning for us again." "What time is it, Derry?" "Sunrise time--come and see." Her window faced the east, and she saw all the pearl of it, and the faint rose and the amethyst and gold. "We shall eat our breakfast ten miles from town," Derry said, as their car carried him out into the country, "and there's a lovesome garden--" "With old-fashioned flowers and a fountain and a Cupid?" "With all that--and more--" The garden belonged to an old woman. For years and years she had planted flowers---tulips and hyacinths and poppies and lilies and gladiolus and larkspur and phlox and ladyslipper--there had always been a riot of color. She had an old gardener, and she would stand over him, leaning on her silver-topped ebony cane, with a lace scarf covering her hair, and would point out the places to plant things. But now in her garden she had strawberries and Swiss chard and sweet herbs, and rows and rows of peas and young onions and potatoes, with a place left for corn at the back, and tomatoes in every spare space. And there was lettuce, and an asparagus bed, and everything on this May morning was shouting to the sun.