She said nothing, but expressed her desire to differ by an incredulous look. Her knowledge of mankind was very limited, after all, or she would never have doubted the truth of his assertion. She did not know then (how should she so soon?) that men are naturally cruel, that women are naturally crueller. In her innocence she imagined that the majority of us are brave but gentle, strong but forbearing, kind, chivalrous, unselfish. While speaking in generalities she was making the common foolish mistake we make every day. She fondly imagined that her thoughts were general, whereas they were lamentably individual. Human nature—the broad classification so glibly falling from her lips—was nothing more important, nothing wider in its compass, than the two words Theo Trist.

'You will admit,' he argued, 'that war is a necessary evil.'

'Yes.'

'Then, so am I. After my name I ought by rights to put the two letters N.E.—Theo Trist, necessary evil.'

'But,' she said with unconscious flattery, 'you make it something more than a necessary evil. You turn it into a glorious thing. You teach that fighting is the noblest calling a man can take up. You make men into soldiers against their will, and ... and you make women long to be men that they might be soldiers.'

A strange look came into the gentle eyes that watched her then—a look that was almost pain; but it vanished again instantly, and the bland face was cold and impassive at once. She was so desperately in earnest that there was a little thrilling catch in her voice. She seemed to be half ashamed of her own sincerity, and did not raise her eyes.

'I am afraid,' he said, after a short pause, 'that I consider soldiering the finest life a man can lead.'

'And yet,' she answered with unerring memory, 'you once wrote that a man is never quite the same again when he has once been under fire.'

Trist moved restlessly. Whenever she made mention of his work, that dull restlessness seemed to come over him. The knowledge that his writing had remained engraved upon her memory seemed to work some subtle change in the man. It would only have been natural for him to feel some pride in this fact whenever she betrayed it; but this was not pride: it was nearer akin to pain or regret.

'Yes,' he admitted; 'but I did not insinuate that the change was one for the worse. In many cases the effect is distinctly beneficial; in a few it is brutalizing. In all it is saddening. A man who has seen much war is hardly an acquisition in a drawing-room.'