Impatiently Lord John Lester pushed his way through the chattering crowds in the lobby, and out into the street. He wanted to breathe, and to get away from the people who regarded the recent disasters mainly as an excitement, a news story, or a justification for their international distastes. To him they were pure horror and grief. They were his friends who had disappeared; it was his League which was threatened.

Moodily he walked along the paths of the Jardin Anglais; broodingly he seated himself upon a bench and stared frowning at the jet d'eau, and suspected, against his will, the Spanish and Portuguese Americans.

A large lady in purple, walking on high-heeled shoes as on stilts, and panting a little from the effort, stopped opposite him.

“Such a favour!” she murmured. “I told my husband it was too much to ask. But no, he would have it. He made me come and speak to you. I've left him over there by the fountain.” She creaked and sat down on the bench, and Lord John, who had risen as she addressed him, sat down too, wondering how most quickly to get away.

“The Union,” said the lady; and at that word Lord John bent towards her more attentively. “Lakeside branches. We're starting them, my husband and I, in all the lake villages. So important; so necessary. These villages are terribly behind the times. They simply live in the past. And what a past! Picturesque if you will—but not progressive—oh, no! So some of us have decided that there must be a branch of the Union in every lake village. We have brought a little band of organisers over to Geneva to-day, to attend the Assembly. But the Assembly is occupied this morning in electing committees. Necessary, of course; but no mention of the broader principles on which the League rests can be made until the voting is over. So we are having a little business meeting in an office off the Rue Croix d'Or. And when my husband and I caught sight of you he said to me, ‘If only we could get Lord John to come right away now and address a few words to our little gathering—oh, but really quite a few—its dead bones would live!’ Now, do I ask too much, Lord John?”

“My dear lady,” said Lord John, “I'm really sorry, but I simply haven't the time, I wish you all the luck in the world, but——”

The purple lady profoundly sighed.

“I told my husband so. It was too much to ask. He's a colonel, you know—an Anglo-Indian—and always goes straight for what he wants, never hesitating. He would make me ask you; ... but at least we have your good wishes, Lord John, haven't we?”

“Indeed, yes.”

“The motto of our little village branches,” she added as she rose, “is Si vis pacem, para bellum. Or, in some villages, Si vis bellum, para pacem. Both so true, aren't they? Now which do you think is the best?”

Lord John Lester looked down at her in silence, momentarily at a loss for an answer.

“Really, my dear lady, ... I'm afraid I don't like either at all. In fact, neither in any way expresses the ideals or principles of the League.”

She looked disappointed.

“Now, you don't say so! But those are the lines we're founding our branches on. One has to be so careful, don't you think, or a branch may get on the wrong lines, with all these peace cranks about. And every branch has its influence. They're ignorant in these lake villages, but they do mean well, and they're only anxious to learn. If only you would come and tell our little organising band how we ought to start them!”

Lord John, having taken the lady in, from her topmost purple feathers to her pin-like heels, decided that, in all probability, she had not got a League mind. And she and the Anglo-Indian colonel (who probably had not got this type of mind either, for Anglo-Indian colonels so exceedingly often have another) were going to start branches of the League of Nations Union all up the lake, to be so many centres of noxious, watered-down, meaningless League velleity, of the type which he, Lord John, found peculiarly repugnant. Perhaps, after all, it might be his duty to go and say a few wholesome words to the little organising band assembled in the office off the Rue Croix d'Or. Yes; it was obviously his duty, and not to be shirked. With a sigh he looked at his watch. It need not take him more than half an hour, all told.

“Very well,” he said. “If you would find a very few words of any use——”

She gave a joyful pant.

“You're too good, Lord John! How grateful we shall all be! You shall tell us all about how we ought to do it, and give us some really good mottoes!... I remember helping with branches of the National Service League before the war, and they had such a nice motto—‘The path of duty is the way to safety.’ ... That would be a good Union motto, don't you think? Or ‘Festina lente’—for we mustn't be impatient, must we? Or, ‘Hands across the sea!’ For nothing is so important as keeping our entente with France intact, is it.... The people of this country will not stand any weakening ... you know.... My husband reads me that out of the paper at breakfast.... There he is ... Frederick, isn't this good of Lord John....”

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