"I remember how Mrs. Karly collapsed when they brought word of the death of her son, and never recovered her mind. And I remember Eunice Steiner when they brought Charles home looking so white—and it was the very day set for their wedding! And I remember all the wounded gathered at the foot of the terrace and being carried in here, while the guns were roaring out on the plain—and now it's all coming again!"
"Why, mother, you're very blue to-day!" said Marta.
"We have had these crises before. We—" Lanstron began, rallying her.
"Oh, yes, you have reason and argument," she parried gently. "I have only my feelings. But it's in the air—yes, war is in the air, as it was that other time. And I remember that young private, only a boy, who lay crumpled up on the steps where he fell. I bandaged him myself and helped to make his position easier. Yes, I almost lifted him in my arms" She was looking at the flowers on the table but not seeing them. She was seeing the face of the young private forty years ago.
"He asked me to bring him a rose. He said the smell of roses was so sweet and he felt so faint. I brought him the rose—and he was dead!"
"Yes, yes!" Marta breathed. She, too, in her quick imagination, was seeing the young private and spatters of blood on the terrace. Lanstron feasted his eyes on her face, which mirrored her emotion.
"Oh, the groans of the dying in the night and the cheering when the news of victory came in!" Mrs. Galland continued. "I could not cheer. But that was, long, long ago—long ago, and yet only yesterday! And now we are to have it all over again. The young men must have their turn. They will not be satisfied by the experience of their fathers. Yes, all over again; still more horrible—and it was horrible enough then! I used to get giddy easily. I do yet. But I didn't faint—no, not once through the days of nursing, the weeks of suspense. I wondered afterward how I could have endured so much."
"Are we of the septicized-serum age equal to it?" Marta exclaimed.
"Yes, we of the matter-of-fact, automatic gun-recoil age!" put in Lanstron.
"Oh, mother," Marta went on, "I wish you would go with me to the class some morning, you who have seen and felt war, and tell it all as you saw it to the children!"