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the means were inextricably bound into and part of the end. Being a chaplain, he had put it in religious terms. He had said that if you picked up and used the devil's tools, you had already served his purpose, because using them had changed you, and that was all he wanted.
    Mason had thought it fanciful, an easy sermon. Now, sitting in this quiet room, he knew it was true. The Peacemaker was no longer the man with whom Mason had planned such noble things five years ago. They had used means he despised, and still they had not achieved their ends of peace. They had fought a war inconceivable even a decade ago and brought ruin that seemed endless and irredeemable. Art, society, and faith had changed forever.
    He remembered how the Peacemaker had envisioned the revolution in Russia as the birth of a new social order sweeping away the old tyranny and putting in its place justice for the ordinary man. Mason had been to Russia and seen the blood and the violence, and the same old weapons of oppression, secrecy, and deceit, no more skilled and certainly no more merciful.
    Above all, he could see in the Peacemaker an imbalance of judgment, a hunger for glory that disturbed him. His visions ignored the passions and the vulnerabilities of men.
    The Peacemaker, leaning forward, broke the silence between them. "We have to affect the terms of the armistice now!" he said urgently. "Before Wilson can force a punitive settlement on Germany and start an economic ruin that will draw into it the whole of Europe. Germany is the key, Mason. Never forget that! They'll rise again. Let it be as our friends—not as our enemies. Think of the future. Whatever you believe of the morality of any of it, the simple truth is that we cannot afford revenge. The ordinary German soldier is no different from the ordinary British soldier. How often have you told me that? The mothers and the widows in a German town are the same as those in London or Cambridge or anywhere. Think, Mason! Use your intelligence, not your sentimentality."
    Mason's resolve had been firm, yet in one short speech the Peacemaker had moved the ground under it, and it wavered. Revenge was the last thing Mason wanted. There was nothing left to take, no one left to hurt any more terribly than they already had been. How could he have been so certain only a few moments ago?
    "There is nothing I can do," he said aloud. It was an evasion, an escape from responsibility, and he knew it before the words were finished.
    "For God's sake, man, you can try!" the Peacemaker snarled, fury suddenly twisting his features. Then with an effort so profound the strain of it was visible, he forced himself to lean back and lower his voice. "If we don't make a just peace—one on which we can build a new and united Europe—then economic chaos will ruin every chance we have of building up what is left of our civilization. We must repair the spirit of our people so they have a will to work, and a faith that it is to some purpose. Can't you see that?" His face was pale, his eyes glittering. "Do I have to explain to you what happens to a nation if we rob it of its identity, its means of regeneration, its faith in its own worth and destiny?" He flexed his long, thin hands. "If the Germans accept that the terms are just, we can be allies in the future. If they can't, then they will hate us. Secretly, violently, they will plan revenge, and it won't matter how long it takes—they will have it. Nothing good is built upon hatred."
    Mason knew this was true, but the use of the word allies shivered through him with all the warnings he had not seen or understood the first time, before John and Alys Reavley were murdered—or Sebastian Allard, or Owen Cullingford, Augustus Tempany, or Theo Blaine— and every village in Britain bereaved of its youth.
    He rose to his feet, surprised at how stiff he was.
    The Peacemaker stared up at him. "What?" he demanded.
    "I'll consider what there is to say that will cut across emotion and