She was a sweet-faced, white-haired lady.

She touched Joan lightly on the hand.
"That's the trouble," she whispered.

"It's in our blood." Could we ever hope to eradicate it?
Was not the survival of this fighting instinct proof that war was still needful to us?
In the sculpture-room of an exhibition she came upon a painted statue of Bellona.

Its grotesqueness shocked her at first sight, the red streaming hair, the wild eyes filled with fury, the wide open mouth--one could almost hear it screaming--the white uplifted arms with outstretched hands! Appalling! Terrible! And yet, as she gazed at it, gradually the thing grew curiously real to her.

She seemed to hear the gathering of the chariots, the neighing of the horses, the hurrying of many feet, the sound of an armouring multitude, the shouting, and the braying of the trumpets.
These cold, thin-lipped calculators, arguing that "War doesn't pay"; those lank-haired cosmopolitans, preaching their "International," as if the only business of mankind were wages! War still was the stern school where men learnt virtue, duty, forgetfulness of self, faithfulness unto death.
This particular war, of course, must be stopped: if it were not already too late.