But both he
and she were aware of that strange numbness which in the fourth year
of the war has been creeping over all the belligerent nations, so
that horror has lost its first edge, and the minds, whether of
soldiers in the field, or of civilians at home, have become hardened
to facts or ideas which would once have stirred in them wild
ferments of rage and terror.
'Shall we win, this year, Desmond?' said Pamela, as they stood
gazing out into the park, where, above a light silvery mist a young
moon was riding in a clear blue. Not a branch stirred in the great
leafless trees; only an owl's plaintive cry seemed to keep in rhythm
with that sinister murmur on the horizon.
'Win?--this year?' said the boy, with a shrug. 'Don't reckon on it,
Pam. Those Russian fools have dished it all for months!'
'But the Americans will make up?'
Desmond assented eagerly. And in the minds of the English boy and
girl there rose a kind of vague vision of an endless procession of
great ships, on a boundless ocean, carrying men, and men, and more
men--guns, and aeroplanes, and shining piles of shells--bringing the
New World to the help of the Old.
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