"You’re no warrior, my dear boy," he said. "Well, we don’t expect it of you."
Eddie grew red.
"I dare say I’m as much of a warrior as the next man," he said. "I dare say I’d like it—this fighting and killing; but I don’t see anything fine about it. I don’t glorify it. I think it’s beastly. There are plenty of things that I’d enjoy that I don’t by any means admire. This fighting is a filthy relic of our old barbarous days."
"Then so are all our splendid passions, my boy. God keep us barbarous, and men! You chilly, cowering little pen-drivers——”
"That’s enough!" said Eddie. "You’re talking rot—pure rot!"
He was making a desperate effort to control a furious anger; for the sake of his own dignity he didn’t dare to quarrel with Vincent. He knew his brother and his unholy resources too well.
"All those chaps in offices and so on," he continued. "You don’t know anything about them. If it comes to the test——”
"Oh, you’ll all do your duty, all you little money-grubbers!" said Vincent. "I don’t doubt that; but what we need—what the world is sick for, dying for—is men who are inspired."
"They might be inspired by something better than drunken enthusiasm," said Eddie.
Vincent laughed again, and looked around the table at his worshipping women; but his glance rested upon Angelica. She caught her breath, stared up at him; and then, for the first time, smiled at him, a smile quite strange to her, trembling and uncertain.