He looked once more at the picture of his mother and at the picture that was not of his mother, shut the little gold case, and put it back in his pocket.
Then he inked on the white inside of a paper-box cover, in large letters, these words:
This office will not be opened until the end of the war.
That office was never opened again.
XXI
The lives of sixty million people had become suddenly full of drill, organization, uniforms, military music, flags, hatred, love, and self-sacrifice, and the nations of the Old World stood about, note-book in hand, like so many medical students at a clinic: could a heart, cut in two, continue to supply a body with blood after the soul had been withdrawn? And the nations of the Old World hoped that there would be enough fresh meat left on the carcass for them to feed on, when the experiment should be at an end. Mother England was particularly hungry, and dearly hoped to have the sucking of the eggs which she herself had laid.
It was a great time for young men, and Margaret shed secret tears on behalf of five of them. It had fallen upon her to tell the old man that his three sons had enlisted, and that task had tortured her for an hour before she had dared go and accomplish it.
“Papa,” she said, “Ham has enlisted, and so has Bul.”
The senator had not moved a muscle.