He laughed.
"Hate! I thrive on it. The more I hate the brutes, the better I feel. Here's to the death of every cursed Hun!"
I looked at him steadily. "I often think," I said, "that there could have been no more unhappy men on earth than Cromwell's Ironsides, or the red revolutionaries in France, when their work was over and done with."
"What's that to do with me?" he said, amazed.
"They too smote out of sheer hate, and came to an end of their smiting. When a man's occupation's gone——"
"You're drivelling!" he said sharply.
"Far from it," I answered, nettled. "Yours is a curious case, Harburn. Most of our professional Hun-haters have found it a good stunt, or are merely weak sentimentalists; they can drop it easily enough when it ceases to be a good stunt, or a parrot's war-cry. You can't; with you it's mania, religion. When the tide ebbs and leaves you high and dry——"
He struck his fist on the arm of his chair, upsetting his glass and awakening the Airedale at his feet.
"I won't let it ebb," he said; "I'm going on with this—Mark me!"
"Remember Canute!" I muttered. "May I have some more port?" I had got up to fill my glass when I saw to my astonishment that a woman was standing in the long window which opened on to the verandah. She had evidently only just come in, for she was still holding the curtain in her hand. It was Mrs. Holsteig, with her fine grey hair blown about her face, looking strange and almost ghostly in a grey gown. Harburn had not seen her, so I went quickly towards her, hoping to get her to go out again as silently, and speak to me on the verandah; but she held up her hand with a gesture as if she would push me back, and said: