Who will care for the people but to use them for killing one another--to hound them on like dogs. In every country nothing but greed and hatred will be preached. Horrible men and women will write to the papers crying out for more blood, more cruelty.
Everything that can make for anger and revenge will be screamed from every newspaper. Every plea for humanity will be jeered at as 'sickly sentimentality.' Every man and woman who remembers the ideals with which we started will be shrieked at as a traitor. The people who are doing well out of it, they will get hold of the Press, appeal to the passions of the mob. Nobody else will be allowed to speak. It always has been so in war. It always will be. This will be no exception merely because it's bigger. Every country will be given over to savagery. There will be no appeal against it. The whole world will sink back into the beast."She ended by rising abruptly and wishing them goodnight. Her outburst had silenced Joan's impish drummer, for the time. He appeared to be nervous and depressed, but bucked up again on the way to the bus. Greyson walked with her as usual. They took the long way round by the outer circle.
"Poor Mary!" he said. "I should not have talked before her if Ihad thought. Her horror of war is almost physical. She will not even read about them. It has the same effect upon her as stories of cruelty.""But there's truth in a good deal that she says," he added. "War can bring out all that is best in a people; but also it brings out the worst. We shall have to take care that the ideals are not lost sight of.""I wish this wretched business of the paper hadn't come just at this time," said Joan: "just when your voice is most needed.
"Couldn't you get enough money together to start something quickly," she continued, the idea suddenly coming to her. "I think I could help you. It wouldn't matter its being something small to begin with. So long as it was entirely your own, and couldn't be taken away from you. You'd soon work it up.""Thanks," he answered. "I may ask you to later on. But just now--" He paused.
Of course. For war you wanted men, to fight. She had been thinking of them in the lump: hurrying masses such as one sees on cinema screens, blurred but picturesque. Of course, when you came to think of it, they would have to be made up of individuals--gallant-hearted, boyish sort of men who would pass through doors, one at a time, into little rooms; give their name and address to a soldier man seated at a big deal table. Later on, one would say good-bye to them on crowded platforms, wave a handkerchief. Not all of them would come back. "You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs," she told herself.
It annoyed her, that silly saying having come into her mind. She could see them lying there, with their white faces to the night.
Surely she might have thought of some remark less idiotic to make to herself, at such a time.
He was explaining to her things about the air service. It seemed he had had experience in flying--some relation of his with whom he had spent a holiday last summer.
It would mean his getting out quickly. He seemed quite eager to be gone.
"Isn't it rather dangerous work?" she asked. She felt it was a footling question even as she asked it. Her brain had become stodgy.
"Nothing like as dangerous as being in the Infantry," he answered.
"And that would be my only other alternative. Besides I get out of the drilling." He laughed. "I should hate being shouted at and ordered about by a husky old sergeant."They neither spoke again till they came to the bridge, from the other side of which the busses started.
"I may not see you again before I go," he said. "Look after Mary.
I shall try to persuade her to go down to her aunt in Hampshire.
It's rather a bit of luck, as it turns out, the paper being finished with. I shouldn't have quite known what to do."He had stopped at the corner. They were still beneath the shadow of the trees. Quite unconsciously she put her face up; and as if it had always been the custom at their partings, he drew her to him and kissed her; though it really was for the first time.
She walked home instead of taking the bus. She wanted to think. Aday or two would decide the question. She determined that if the miracle did not happen, she would go down to Liverpool. Her father was on the committee of one of the great hospitals; and she knew one or two of the matrons. She would want to be doing something--to get out to the front, if possible. Maybe, her desire to serve was not altogether free from curiosity--from the craving for adventure. There's a spice of the man even in the best of women.
Her conscience plagued her when she thought of Mrs. Denton. For some time now, they had been very close together; and the old lady had come to depend upon her. She waited till all doubt was ended before calling to say good-bye. Mrs. Denton was seated before an old bureau that had long stood locked in a corner of the library.
The drawers were open and books and papers were scattered about.
Joan told her plans. "You'll be able to get along without me for a little while?" she asked doubtfully.
Mrs. Denton laughed. "I haven't much more to do," she answered.
"Just tidying up, as you see; and two or three half-finished things I shall try to complete. After that, I'll perhaps take a rest."She took from among the litter a faded photograph and handed it to Joan. "Odd," she said. "I've just turned it out."It represented a long, thin line of eminently respectable ladies and gentlemen in early Victorian costume. The men in peg-top trousers and silk stocks, the women in crinolines and poke bonnets.
Among them, holding the hand of a benevolent-looking, stoutish gentleman, was a mere girl. The terminating frills of a white unmentionable garment showed beneath her skirts. She wore a porkpie hat with a feather in it.