"
"But perhaps I can arrange a meeting for you with a friend," she added,
"who will be better able to help you, if he is in Paris. I will let you
know."
She told Joan what she remembered herself of 1870. She had turned her
country house into a hospital and had seen a good deal of the fighting.
"It would not do to tell the truth, or we should have our children
growing up to hate war," she concluded.
She was as good as her word, and sent Joan round a message the next
morning to come and see her in the afternoon. Joan was introduced to a
Monsieur de Chaumont. He was a soldierly-looking gentleman, with a grey
moustache, and a deep scar across his face.
"Hanged if I can see how we are going to get out of it," he answered Joan
cheerfully. "The moment there is any threat of war, it becomes a point
of honour with every nation to do nothing to avoid it. I remember my old
duelling days. The quarrel may have been about the silliest trifle
imaginable. A single word would have explained the whole thing away. But
to utter it would have stamped one as a coward.
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