"Please excuse us", Asquith was encouraged to speak up after the foreigners' rejection of Mountbatten's obvious intentions. "When the Foreign Secretary said war, she meant, of course, economic war, and when she said it was to be violent, she only intended to put emphasis. Mrs Mountbatten was surely convinced that this was implied, hence she didn't elaborate, no?", he said and looked at Mountbatten with forced amiability. His personal dignity was important, but it would be more undone at home by the failure of this conference than here for not giving Mountbatten tit for tat.
"Y-yes", answered Mountbatten, desperate to save face. "Sorry", she said as quietly as she could and cleared her throat. "What I wanted to ask was how much each of us can demand from Gallia. We in Bretonia think that, since they have devastated Leeds, they should cover all cost of colonising Carlisle, at the very least, plus pay for repairing whatever damage can still be repaired in Leeds. And because of their economic depression, they should be willing to, er, pay more, not less, to save themselves from a total trade embargo."
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