Mr. Lavender half rose in horror.
“I don't approve,” he ejaculated; “I do not approve of you.”
“Of course not,” said the young man with a little smile at once proud and sad, “who does? If you did I shouldn't have to eat like this, nor should I have the consciousness of spiritual loneliness to sustain me. You look on me as a moral outcast, as a leper. That is my comfort and my strength. For though I have a genuine abhorrence of war, I know full well that I could not stick this if it were not for the feeling that I must not and will not lower myself to the level of mere opportunists like you, and sink myself in the herd of men in the street.”
At hearing himself thus described Mr. Lavender flushed.
“I yield to no one,” he said, “in my admiration of principle. It is because of my principles that I regard you as a——”
“Shirker,” put in the young man calmly. “Go on; don't mince words; we're used to them.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Lavender, kindling, “a shirker. Excuse me! A renegade from the camp of Liberty, a deserter from the ranks of Humanity, if you will pardon me.”
“Say a Christian, and have done with it,” said the young man.
“No,” said Mr. Lavender, who had risen to his feet, “I will not go so far as that. You are not a Christian, you are a Pharisee. I abhor you.”
“And I abhor you,” said the young man suddenly. “I am a Christian Socialist, but I refuse to consider you my brother. And I can tell you this: Some day when through our struggle the triumph of Christian Socialism and of Peace is assured, we shall see that you firebrands and jingoes get no chance to put up your noxious heads and disturb the brotherhood of the world. We shall stamp you out. We shall do you in. We who believe in love will take jolly good care that you apostles of hate get all we've had and more—if you provoke us enough that is.”