"I was thinking of going into the Army."
The statement was not strictly untrue, but he had never formulated it, and he had never thought consecutively of such a project, which did indeed appear too wild and unpractical for serious consideration.
"This recruiting's been upsetting you."
George's vague patriotism seemed to curdle at these half-dozen scornful words.
"Do you think I oughtn't to go into the Army, Sir Isaac?"
"My dear boy, any——can go into the Army. And if you go into the Army you'll lose your special qualities. I see you as the best factory designer we have, architecturally. You've only just started, but you have it in you. And your barracks is pretty good. Of course, if you choose to indulge in sentimentality you can deprive the country of an architect in a million and make it a present of a mediocre soldier—for you haven't got the mind of a soldier. But if you do that, mark my words—you'll only do it to satisfy the egotism that you call your heart, you'll only do it in order to feel comfortable; just as a woman gives a penny to a beggar and thinks it's charity when it's nothing of the sort. There are fellows that go and enlist because they hear a band play."
"Yes," George concurred. He hated to feel himself confronted by a mind more realistic than his own, but he was
realistic enough to admit the fact. What Sir Isaac said was unanswerable, and it appealed very strongly to George. He cast away his sentimentality, ashamed of it. And at the same time he felt greatly relieved in other ways.
"You'd better put this Indian barracks on one side as much as you can, or employ some one to help you. I shall want all your energies."
"But I shall probably have to go to India. The thing's very urgent."