He then accepted a
chair by the side of the Bishop, who immediately opened the
proceedings.
"My friends," the latter began, "as I sent word to you a little
time ago, Mr. Stenson has preferred to bring you his answer
himself. Our ambassador--Mr. Julian Orden--waited upon him at
Downing Street at the hour arranged upon, and, in accordance with
his wish to meet you all, Mr. Stenson is paying us this visit."
The Bishop hesitated, and the Prime Minister promptly drew his
chair a little farther into the circle.
"Gentlemen," he said, "the issue which you have raised is so
tremendous, and its results may well be so catastrophic, that I
thought it my duty to beg Mr. Orden to arrange for me to come and
speak to you all, to explain to you face to face why, on behalf of
His Majesty's Government, I cannot do your bidding."
"You don't want peace, then?" one of the delegates from the other
side of the table asked bluntly.
"We do not," was the quiet reply. "We are not ready for it."
"The country is," Fenn declared firmly. "We are."
"So your ambassador has told me," was the calm reply. "In point
of numbers you may be said, perhaps, to represent the nation. In
point of intellect, of knowledge--of inner knowledge, mind--I
claim that I represent it. I tell you that a peace now, even on
the terms which your Socialist allies in Germany have suggested,
would be for us a peace of dishonour."
"Will you tell us why?" the Bishop begged.
"Because it is not the peace we promised our dead or our living
heroes," Mr.
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