"Yes," he answered. "Yes."
He paced the length of the room twice—three times and said nothing. She watched him as he walked and she knew he was going to say more. She also wondered what curious thing it might be. She had said to herself that what he said and did would be entirely detached from ordinary or archaic views. Also she had guessed that it might be extraordinary—perhaps as extraordinary as his long intimacy with Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. Was there a possibility that he was going to express himself now?
"But that is not all," he said at last and he ended his pondering walk by coming nearer to her. He sat down and touched the newspapers lying on the table.
"You have been poring over these," he said, "and I have been doing the same thing. I have also been talking to the people who know things and to those who ought to know them but don't. Just now the news is worse each day. In the midst of the roar and thunder of cataclysms to talk about a mere girl 'in trouble' appears disproportionate. But because our world seems crumbling to pieces about us she assumes proportions of her own. I was born of the old obstinate passions of belief in certain established things and in their way they have had their will of me. Lately it has forced itself upon me that I am not as modern as I have professed to be. The new life has gripped me, but the old has not let me go. There are things I cannot bear to see lost forever without a struggle."
"Such as—" she said it very low.
"I conceal things from myself," he answered, "but they rise and confront me. There were days when we at least believed—quite obstinately—in a number of things."
"Sometimes quite heroically," she admitted. "'God Save the Queen' in its long day had actual glow and passion. I have thrilled and glowed myself at the shouting song of it."
"Yes," he drew a little nearer to her and his cold face gained a slight colour. "In those days when a son—or a grandson—was born to the head of a house it was a serious and impressive affair."
"Yes." And he knew she at once recalled her own son—and George in Flanders.