Mrs. Fane put out her hand to stop Michael’s flowing tirade, but he paid no attention, talking away less to her than to himself. Indeed, long before he had finished, she made no pretence of listening, but merely sat crying quietly.
“I’ve been thinking a good deal lately about this war,” Michael declared. “I’m beginning to doubt whether it’s a just war, whether we didn’t simply set out on it for brag and money. I’m not sure that I want to see the Boers conquered. They’re a small independent nation, and they have old-fashioned ideas and they’re narrow-minded Bible-worshippers, but there’s something noble about them, something much nobler than there is in these rotten adventurers who go out to fight them. Of course, I don’t mean by that people like Captain Ross or Lord Saxby. They’re gentlemen. They go either because it’s their duty or because they think it’s their duty. And they’re the ones that get killed. You don’t hear of these swaggerers in khaki being killed. I haven’t heard yet of many of them even going to the front at all. Oh, mother, I am fed up with the rotten core of everything that looks so fine on the outside.”
Mrs. Fane was now crying loud enough to make Michael stop in sudden embarrassment.
“I say, mother, don’t cry. I expect I’ve been talking nonsense,” he softly told her.
“I don’t know where you get these views. I was always so proud of you. I thought you were charming and mysterious, and you’re simply vulgar!”
“Vulgar?” echoed Michael in dismay.
Mrs. Fane nodded vehemently.
“Oh, well, if I’m vulgar, I’ll go.”
Michael hurried to the door.
“Where are you going?” asked his mother in alarm.