"You don't understand—I had to express myself about war—war in the generic sense. The inner psychology of war always remains the same, whether it's York and Lancaster—North and South America—the Assyrians and the Babylonians—or the Allies and the Huns. There's not a problem connected with the war which can be raised now, which could not have been equally contended in any one of those campaigns."
"Thousands, Mona."
"Not one, Ran—in its underlying human substance. I'm not referring to alterations in the method of warfare; naturally these are subject to periodic changes——"
"And the human problems are dependent on these changes." He looked round for his hat: "'Books and the War'! It's been a most illuminating discussion. Patricia, you're dining with me in half an hour, and don't forget it."
"Oh, Miss O'Neill, you must spare me an evening soon, away from all these talkative men; won't you?" Mona Gurney was not alone in always calling Pat by the name under which she wrote. They were all liable to forget, at Leslie Campbell's, that she was the wife of Gareth Temple.
"Not this side of Christmas, Miss Gurney, unless you cross the Channel. I'm off again to-night. But do send me a copy of the new book, if it comes out in the autumn. Just to remind me of this past hour——"
"Of which the summing-up——"
"No, Ran—No!" they all cried in chorus. But unperturbedly sententious, Wyman went on: "... is this: that the underlying motive power for the continual and increasing eruption of war literature, in spite of discouragement and difficulties, is neither impertinence, gold-greed, nor public demand; but rather the fact that each person feels urgently the necessity somehow to identify himself with the war, for fear of being stranded for ever upon its outer rim. Expression is one way of connection——"
"No."
It was Gareth who in a low voice had contradicted; though till the rest of the company turned and stared at him in some surprise at his unwonted contribution to the argument, he was not sure if he had spoken aloud the negative shouted by his soul.