"I approve with all my heart."
For the moment it rested there. Lionel began to talk of his coming campaign. The elder men and both the women, wife and mother, listened to his young, eager voice. How keen he was! How sure of himself and of his men, particularly the men. He talked persistently of Mr. Thomas Atkins, of his artful divagations in peace and his whole-souled valour in war. Hamlin reflected that it was good to listen to such talk, good to be young and valiant, at such a time, good even to die, if the supreme sacrifice were demanded, clean of limb and mind, leaping joyously upward, unfettered by disease or vice, fit—to use the boy's own word—for the greatest adventure of all.
He heard his own boy speaking, just such another! Britain had thousands of them, the fine flower of careful training, of a courtesy constantly exercised, of a courage sharpened to finest edge by the grindstone of games and sports, of an intelligence not quite so keenly tempered, but alert enough in moments of stress, of a "morale" which nothing could dismay.
Surely they would be invincible?
When Lionel waxed anecdotal, Hamlin's thoughts wandered to the women. He had been a stalwart champion of the "Cause," till the militant suffragettes took to smashing windows and smacking policemen. One effect of the war, and no inconsiderable national asset, was the subsidence of these tempestuous petticoats, never to flutter again, so he hoped. From women this essentially virile parson had always expected and exacted great things. The true prosperity of any country, so he held, flowed from them and culminated in them. He had recognised, even at college, their immeasurable potentialities—a favourite word of his. To ignore their claims, politically, he contended in and out of print, was a colossal blunder. But, quite apart from the granting or withholding of female suffrage, he desired ardently to see women doing intelligently and thoroughly the work peculiarly their own, whether as matrons or spinsters. The death-rate amongst babies appalled him; the physique of young girls overworked in over-crowded, over-heated factories and shops roused this austere parish priest to fever-heat. He had marvelled at the astigmatic insight displayed by sincere statesmen and philanthropists, an insight ludicrously so-called, which overlooked women as the mightiest lever to raise and regenerate a nation.
And now, in the dim twilight of a world in gloom, he perceived a beacon steadily shining. The women would have their opportunity. One could adumbrate triumph or disaster by the effort, sustained or otherwise, made by them. The men would play their part, if the inspiration of the women lay behind them. And in the inevitable dislocations of all human enterprise, both during and after the war, he beheld women stimulating the men either upward or downward, for good or ill, according to the spirit which burned within them.
He gazed at Lady Pomfret and his daughter Joyce, as their eyes dwelt upon the son and husband about to sail for France. He could guess what sensibilities lacerated their hearts. Outwardly, each remained calm. They would be so when the moment of parting came, speeding their warrior on his way with smiles, keeping back the tears till he was out of sight.
Hamlin walked home across the park, and let himself into the Vicarage with his latch-key. It was past eleven, and, to his surprise, Fancy had not gone to bed. As she lit his candle he chided her with the touch of testiness which had ceased to frighten her.
She said quickly:
"I wanted to see you, sir."