They chuckled and so managed to dissipate the last trace of stiffness between them. Rod considered that he had won a minor victory. He knew that Andy Hall was one of those occasional beings who sprang from obscure 'sources with brains, courage, a pertinacious diligence in whatever he undertook, with infinite capacities for loyalty to either a person or an idea; the sort of man who leads forlorn proletarian hopes and is sometimes crucified by his own kind for fighting their battles. He could trust Andy Hall. Rod would have found it difficult to say, offhand, just why. But he knew that he could. And he had to have about him men whom he could trust, men who could understand that he was not simply another exploiter seeking ruthlessly his own advantage.
It was easy for men like Hall to lubricate the wheels of industry, or to set up frictions that produced minor disasters. Men like Andy thought in terms beyond themselves, beyond their personal ends. They rose up out of the low ground of their origins, looming above the common ruck like tall trees above a thicket. Rod was very glad to have Andy Hall's paid services. But he appreciated even more Andy's instant grasp of a difficult situation met in the only possible fashion.
A murmur of voices sounded in the living room. Rod was a trifle surprised to see Isabel Wall's piquant face turn to him over the back of a Chesterfield. She had been in the south all winter. Almost five years had left Isabel unchanged in appearance, except that her fair hair was thicker and bobbed in the prevailing mode so that it stood out around her head like a fluffy aureole, making her seem, with her big blue eyes and delicate pink-and-white skin, more like a charming doll than ever. Rod's mind revived that embarrassing scene under a high moon among the great tree shadows on Big Dent. He had not seen Isabel since. She put out her hand now with frank friendliness. It was all a little unexpected. Isabel so patently belonged in the camp of the enemy. Yet she seemed very sure of her ground here in his house, very much at home.
He introduced Andy to his wife, to Isabel, to a plump matron with two chins and a positive, not to say emphatic manner of speaking; a Mrs. Emmert whom Rod vaguely remembered.
He fell into conversation with Isabel, or rather Isabel talked and he listened. Isabel prattled as of old. Rod lost himself in speculation as to how any one could possibly talk so much and say so little. It was an art. He came out of this semi-absorption. Isabel ceased talking. Her face turned aside with a new quality of fixed attention. Rod looked and became aware that Andy was speaking to Mrs. Emmert with a bitter, gibing note in his usually pleasant voice. The whimsical, good-natured expression of his face had vanished. His face had hardened; his eyes had narrowed.
"You may consider it a notable distinction," he was saying. "But possibly your son has his doubts."
The lady made a sound in the nature of a gasp.
"You see," Andy continued in that frozen tone, "people whose knowledge of war is based on what they read in the papers don't know anything about war at all. The front-line men do. Most of 'em don't care to talk much about it. Being a person of no discrimination, I do talk about it. There is no glory in war—particularly this war—for the men who actually carry on the war. All the benefits of this ruction (if there are any benefits, which I doubt) are derived by people who stayed at home and did their patriotic duty by knitting socks and buying bonds and selling supplies to the War Department. You can't tell a soldier that it was anything but a dirty, dangerous job which he hated."
"That's the most unpatriotic thing I ever heard," Mrs. Emmert sputtered.
"I paid two fingers and a hole in one leg for the privilege of saying things like that," Andy observed tartly. "They're true. Your attitude is common enough. You've got one of these hermetically sealed minds that conceives of war as some sort of international game played by young men with guns; a game in which your son distinguished himself by winning a medal. A medal!" he snorted,—and plunged his good hand into an inner pocket.