"Gone?"
Wickham spoke with dismay in his voice. I think he had counted on Eileen as his stand-by when Elsa would need a friend in England.
"Hush now!" said Daddy Small. "It's my secret, you wicked lady with black eyes and a mystical manner."
"Doctor," said Eileen, "your own President rebukes you. 'Open covenants openly arrived at'—weren't those his words for the new diplomacy?"
"Would to God he had kept to them," said the little doctor, bitterly, launching into a denunciation of the Peace Conference until I cut him short with a question.
"What's this secret, Doctor?"
He pulled out his pocket-book with an air of mystery.
"We're getting on with the International League of Good-will," he said. "It's making more progress than the League of Nations. There are names here that are worth their weight in gold. There are golden promises which by the grace of God"—Daddy Small spoke solemnly—"will be fulfilled by golden deeds. Anyhow, we're going to get a move on—away from hatred towards charity, not for the making of wounds but for the healing, not punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty, but saving the innocent—the Holy Innocents—for the glory of life. Miss Eileen and others are going to be the instruments of the machinery of mercy—rather, I should say, the spirit of humanity."
"With you as our gallant leader," said Eileen, patting his hand.
"It sounds good," said Brand. "Let's hear some more."
Dr. Small told us more in glowing language, and in Biblical utterance mixed with American slang like Billy Sunday's Bible. He was profoundly moved. He was
