_Hertz:_ What do you mean? Quiet? Of course you'll keep quiet. Quiet as a tombstone, if I have anything to say about it. _Hedwig:_ [_Calm and tense._] I mean what I say. Promise to see to it that if we bear you the men for your nation, there shall be no more war. See to it that they shall not go forth to murder and be murdered. That is fair. We will do our part,--we always have,--will you do yours? Promise. _Hertz:_ I--I--ridiculous! There will always be war. _Hedwig:_ Then one day we will stop giving you men. Look at mother. Four sons torn from her in one month, and none of you ever asked her if she wanted war. You keep us here helpless. We don't want dreadnoughts and armies and fighting, we women. You tear our husbands, our sons, from us,--you never ask us to help you find a better way,--and haven't we anything to say? _Hertz:_ No. War is man's business. _Hedwig:_ Who gives you the men? We women. We bear and rear and agonize. Well, if we are fit for that, we are fit to have a voice in the fate of the men we bear. If we can bring forth the men for the nation, we can sit with you in your councils and shape the destiny of the nation, and say whether it is to war or peace we give the sons we bear. _Hertz:_ [_Chuckling._] Sit in the councils? That would be a joke. I see. Mother, she's a little--[_Touches his forehead suggestively._] Sit in the councils with the men and shape the destiny of the nation! Ha! ha! _Hedwig:_ Laugh, Herr Captain, but the day will come; and then there will be no more war. No, you will not always keep us here, dumb, silent drudges. We will find a way. _Hertz:_ [_Turning to the mother._] That is what comes of letting Franz go to a factory town, Maria. That is where he met this girl. Factory towns breed these ideas. [_To Hedwig._] Well, we'll have none of that here. [_Authoritatively._] Another word of this kind of insurrection, another word to the women of your treason, and you will be locked up and take your just punishment. You remember I had to look out for you in the beginning when you talked against this war. You're a firebrand, and you know how we handle the like of you. [_Goes to door, turns to the mother._] I am sorry you have to have this trouble, Maria, on top of everything else. You don't deserve it. [_To Hedwig._] You have been warned. Look out for yourself. [_Hedwig is standing rigid, with difficulty repressing the torrent of her feelings. Drums are heard coming nearer, and singing voices of men._] _Amelia:_ [_At door._] They are passing this way. _Hedwig:_ Wave to Arno. Come, Mother. Ah, how quickly they go! [_The official steps out of the door. There is quick rhythm of marching feet as the departing regiment passes not very far from the house._] There he is! Wave, Mother. Good-by! good-by! [_The women stand in the doorway, waving their sad farewells, smiling bravely. The sounds grow less and less, until there is the usual silence._]