"All right!" she said, half understanding what he wished her to understand.
For she, too, was vaguely aware of danger; she, too, could dimly perceive whither her eager feet were leading her; but she ran to it, flew to it. She, too, had an odd and terrible feeling of approaching ill fortune. She felt disaster drawing near, yet was not able even to wish to avoid it.
She sat down at the table, next to Vincent; and she hadn’t been there for fifteen minutes before she was lost. His bold eyes rested on her face, and all her own boldness turned to surrender, her own fierceness melted. She couldn’t turn away from him; she sat very still, enthralled, listening to his voice, watching his mobile face, the fine, straight brows moving so expressively, his supple hands.
He was still in his rough sport clothes, and his bright brown hair was ruffled. He had an air about him of fine, arrogant carelessness that she could worship. He had none of Eddie’s punctilio, no sort of nice manners; he had only an indifferent ease, a most complete disregard for any other living soul.
He interrupted without compunction, he made no pretense of listening; he wanted to do all the talking, and he wanted to be listened to with respect. Well, why not? Angelica wished nothing better than to look at him and listen to him forever; she couldn’t bear the idea of having to leave his presence.
Every time she looked at him, he was looking at her—at those curious eyes not quite alike. She was bewitched; she scarcely knew what she was doing. She felt that she shouldn’t look at him so much, but that was quite beyond her control. The other people seemed dim and far away, hardly audible. He was filling up the world.
He talked of the war, and his words were glorious. Oh, he was a poet, truly! His talk of blood and battles fired her imagination. Eddie’s studious dissertations upon the rights and wrongs of the conflict seemed to her contemptible. A man mustn’t go to war because it is his duty, but because he loves it; because he is a hero, like Vincent.
"I’m going!" he said. "I long for it. It’s the completion of a man’s life. Until he has fought and killed, a man has not lived. That is his manhood, his glory. Think of all Europe rushing, blood-mad, to the Flanders battlefields, all the young and the fine and the strong herded there, to kill or to die! My God! The very pinnacle of life!"
"Or the lowest depth," said Eddie.
Vincent laughed.