Lendle

Swords Reluctant Published in London under the title of "War and the Woman"
By Max Pemberton
Author of "The Fortunate Prisoner," "The Garden of Swords," etc.
"Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war."
Milton: Sonnets.
"I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun."
Shakespeare: Richard III.
The Author would make acknowledgments to Sir Max Waechter and to Sir Francis Trippel for the generous help given to this book and to its purpose. While the characters in it are entirely fictitious, the scheme for the Federation of Europe is wholly due to Sir Max Waechter's initiative. This scheme has obtained favour at the Courts of the Continent and is warmly approved by many in this country, who realise how inseparably the Peace question is allied to that of the national finance.
CONTENTS
Book I.—The Challenge
CHAPTER 1. Gabrielle Silvester Writes a Letter
CHAPTER 2. A Man of Destiny
CHAPTER 3. Between Heaven and Earth
CHAPTER 4. The Beginning of the Odyssey
CHAPTER 5. General d'Arny and his Daughter
Book II.—The Players
CHAPTER 1. A Race for an Emperor
CHAPTER 2. Louis De Paleologue
CHAPTER 3. The Damnable Mountains
CHAPTER 4. The Burning of Ranovica
CHAPTER 5. A Strange Voyage
CHAPTER 6. Goodwill Toward Men
Book III.—Aftermath
CHAPTER 1. The Memorable Winter
CHAPTER 2. Of Love but not of Marriage
CHAPTER 3. After Ten Days
CHAPTER 4. Cinderella
CHAPTER 5. The Man of the Moment
Book IV.—Merely Men and Women
CHAPTER 1. After the Debacle
CHAPTER 2. The Shadow is Lifted
CHAPTER 3. The Marigolds to the Sun
CHAPTER 4. Surrender and Afterwards
CHAPTER 5. Two Ships upon the Sea
SWORDS RELUCTANT
CHAPTER I GABRIELLE SILVESTER WRITES A LETTER
Gabrielle returned from the Town Hall where the meeting was held, just after ten o'clock, and was glad to see the fire burning brightly in her room. She remembered that she would never have thought of such a luxury as a fire in her bedroom prior to her visit to New York.
All agreed that it had been a very successful meeting, and that real, convincing work had been done. She herself could say, in the privacy of her own room, that the excitements of such gatherings had become a necessity to her since the strenuous days in America, and perhaps to her father also.
How changed her life since she first set foot on the deck of the Oceanic and began to know a wider world! England had seemed but a garden upon her return and its people but half awake. She had a vivid memory of the rush and roar of distant cities, of strange faces and new races, but chiefly of a discovery of self which at once frightened and perplexed her.
Would it be possible to accept without complaint the even tenor of that obscure life in Hampstead which she had suffered willingly but seven months ago? She knew that it would not, and could answer for her father also. A call had come to him and to her. She had been sure of it at the meeting, but of its nature she had yet to be wholly convinced.
Gordon Silvester, the most eloquent preacher among the Congregationalists, had gone to America at the bidding of a famous millionaire, there to bear witness to the brotherhood of man and the bond between the peoples. The achievement of the great treaty between America and the Motherland had drawn together the leading intellects of the two countries, and had culminated in that mighty assemblage in New York which had stood before the altar of the Eternal Peace and closed, as it believed for ever, the Temple of the twin-headed Janus. With the minister had gone Gabrielle, his only child, and thus for the first time during her three and twenty years had she seen any world but that of the suburban parish in which Gordon Silvester laboured.