"You're not making it much better, but perhaps you'd lose something if you were not so frank. One distrusts people who always say the proper thing."
Andrew glanced at a well-dressed, handsome man who was playing billiards with Dick. He came to Appleyard for a day or two now and then, and had been there when Andrew arrived from Canada.
"Does that mean you don't quite trust Williamson? I've sometimes wondered whether it's his right name."
Elsie looked thoughtful and answered with some hesitation:
"I don't think it is. He hasn't a trace of foreign accent and his ways are ours, but I can't help feeling that he does not belong to us. Then I've noticed that he never talks to Mother much. But of course it's only changing his name that matters, not where he was born. Our enemies are not all treacherous and cruel. You have seen the portraits Mother has of her own people, and three or four were soldiers. They have kind, true faces. I think they were men with an unusual sense of duty."
"You see what's best in everybody," Andrew replied. "But if there are good fellows on the other side, why do they behave like savages?"
"Ah!" said Elsie, and was silent for a few moments.
Andrew glanced at his cousin, who had soon recovered from his fall. He was now chalking his cue, and his eyes had an excited glitter. A syphon and a whisky bottle stood on a table near by, and Andrew wondered whether Elsie had noticed that Dick's glass was full again.
"I'll beat you if I can make that cannon," Dick was saying.
"Half a sovereign you don't; but you had better not take me," Williamson replied. "It would need a professional's stroke."