'
'Till Germany is on her knees?' His long bony face, more lined, more
emaciated than ever, seemed to catch a sombre glow from hers.
'Yes--though it last ten years! But the Americans are hurrying.'
'Are all women like you?'
Her mouth trembled into scorn.
'Oh, think of the women whose shoe-strings I am not worthy to
unloose!--the nurses, the French peasant-women, the women who have
given their husbands--their sons.'
His look showed his agitation.
'So we are to be saved--by boys like Desmond--and women like you?'
'Oh, I am a cypher--a nothing!' There was a passionate humiliation
in her voice. 'I should be nursing in France--'
'If it weren't for your mother and your sister?'
She nodded. There was a pause. Then the Squire said, in a different
tone,
'But you have not answered my question. I should be obliged if you
would answer it. How am I, being I--how is a man of my kind to fill
his time--and live his life? If the country is in deadly peril--if
the ground is shaking beneath our feet--if we are to go on fighting
for years, with "our backs to the wall," even I can't go on
cataloguing Greek vases.
Pages:
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463