“Why not? Were you any better than any of the soldiers?” she asked eyeing him calmly, and somehow he seemed to feel smaller than his normal estimate of himself.
“An officer?” he said with a contemptuous haughty light in his eye.
“What is an officer but the servant of his men?” asked Lynn. “Would you want to eat before them when they had stood hours in line waiting? They who had all the hard work and none of the honors?”
Laurie's cheeks were flushed and his eyes angry:
“That's rot!” he said rudely, “Where did you get it? The officers were picked from the cream of the land. They represent the great Nation. An insult to them is an insult to the Nation—!”
Lynn began to smile impudently—and her eyes were dancing again.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, you must not forget I was there. I knew both officers and men. I admit that some of the officers were princely, fit men to represent a great Christian Nation, but some of them again were well—the scum of the earth, rather than the cream. Mr. Shafton it does not make a man better than his fellows to be an officer, and it does not make him fit to be an officer just because his father is able to buy him a commission.”
Laurie flushed angrily again:
“My father did not buy me a commission!” he said indignantly, “I went to a training camp and won it.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, I meant nothing personal, but I certainly had no use for an officer who came bustling in on those long lines of weary soul-sick boys just back from the front, and perhaps off again that night, and tried to get ahead of them in line. However, let's talk of something else. Were you ever up around Dead Man's Curve? What division were you in?”