"Oh, boy!" he said.
Piers frowned upon him, still half-laughing. "What? Are we down-hearted?
Buck up, man! Congratulate me! I was one of the first."
But congratulation stuck in Crowther's throat. "I wish this had come—twenty years ago!" was all he found to say.
"Thank Heaven it didn't!" ejaculated Piers. "Why, don't you see it's the one thing for me—about the only stroke of real luck I've ever had in my life?"
"And your wife doesn't know?" said Crowther.
"She does not. And I won't have her told. Mind that!" Piers' voice was suddenly determined. "She knows I shan't keep out of it, and that's enough. If she wants me—which she won't—she can get at me through Victor or one of them. But that won't happen. Don't you worry yourself as to that, my good Crowther! I know jolly well what I'm doing. Don't you see it's the chance of my life? Do you think I'm going to miss it, what?"
"I think you're going to break her heart," Crowther said gravely.
"That's because you don't understand," Piers made steady reply. "Nothing will alter so long as I stay. But this war is going to alter everything. We shall none of us come out of it as we went in. When I come back—things will be different."
He spoke sombrely. The boyish ardour had gone out of him. Something of fatefulness, something of solemn realization, of steadfast fortitude, had taken its place.
"I tell you, Crowther," he said, "I am not doing this thing without weighing the cost. But—I haven't much to lose, and I've all to gain. Even if it doesn't do—what I hope, it'll steady me down, it'll make a man of me—and not—a murderer."