Palgrave was not ready with his reply and he turned away while he looked for it and shuffled the papers on his desk with a nervous hand. "Yes, I would," he said at last. "Hateful as it is to have to say it--I would have stood by." He came back to his place at the mantelpiece and looked down at Oldmeadow as he spoke. "The choice, of course, is hateful; but I think we should have stood by and helped the sufferers and let France and Germany fight it out. It always comes back to them, doesn't it? They're always fighting it out; they always will, till they find it's no good and that they can't annihilate each other; which is what they both want to do. Oh, I've read too many of the young French neo-Catholics to be able to believe that the hateful idea was all on one side. Their ideals don't differ much, once you strip them of their theological tinsel, from those of the Germans. Germany happens to be the aggressor now; but if the militarist party in France had had the chance, they'd have struck as quickly."
"The difference--and it's an immense one--is that the militarist party in France wouldn't have had the chance. The difference is that it doesn't govern and mould public opinion. It's not a menace to the world. It's only a sort of splendid pet, kept in a Zoo, for the delectation of a certain class and party. Whereas Germany's the _bona fide_ hungry tigress at large. What you really ask of England, Palgrave, is that she should be a Buddha and lie down and let the tigress, after finishing France, devour her, too. It really comes to that. Buddhism is the only logical basis for your position, and I don't believe, however sorry one may be for hungry tigresses, that the right way to deal with them is to let them eat you. The Christian philosophy of the incarnation is the true one. Matter does make a spiritual difference. It does make a difference, a real difference, that the ideal should be made flesh. It's important to the world, spiritually, that the man rather than the tigress should survive."
"Christ gave his life," said Palgrave, after a moment.
"I'm not speaking of historical personages; but of eternal truths," said Oldmeadow.
But he knew already that he spoke in vain. Palgrave had turned away his eyes again and on his sad young face he read the fixity of a fanatic idealism. He had not moved him, though he had troubled him. No one would move Palgrave. He doubted, now, whether Adrienne herself had had much influence over him. It was with the sense of pleading a lost cause that he said, presently, "Adrienne hopes you'll feel it right to go."