"I'm going to do nothing," he replied. "That is I'm going to carry out the plan we agreed on. Look here, Nancy——"
But again she interrupted him. She was angry beyond words, but she kept herself in check.
"That's all I wanted to know. Thank you. We are not going to play tennis for a little while. We are all going for a walk. Good afternoon."
"You mean that you do not wish me to go with you."
"I do not think you—you would enjoy coming. You see the others——"
She did not complete the sentence, but hurried away, leaving him alone.
Bob felt as though the heavens had become black. He had expected to be misunderstood, sneered at, despised; but he had never dreamed that Nancy would turn from him like this. He knew she hated war. He remembered her telling him about her eldest brother who had been killed in the Boer War, and how it had darkened her home, and added years to her father's life. She had encouraged him in the career he had marked out too; she had agreed with him that the work he had at heart was the noblest any man could do. As a consequence, he thought she would understand him, sympathise with him.
Bob had not come to his decision carelessly, or with a light heart. He had gone over the ground inch by inch. Yes, England was in the right. He did not believe that Germany had planned the war, and he blamed the Czar as much as he blamed the Kaiser. No doubt Germany had broken treaties. It was wrong for her to invade Luxemburg, and then to send her ultimatum to Belgium, after she had been a party to the treaty to maintain Belgium's integrity and neutrality. Of course, the King of the Belgians had made a strong case when he had called upon England to protect her.
But war!
He thought of what it meant, for his father's teaching and influence were not forgotten. Generations of Quaker influence and blood were not without effect. War was born in hell. It was an act of savagery, and not of Christian nations. He pictured the awful carnage, the indescribable butchery, the untold horror which were entailed. He saw hordes of men fighting like devils; realised the lust for blood which was ever the concomitant of war. Besides, they settled nothing. Wars always bred wars, one always sowed the seeds of another. When this bloody welter came to an end, what then? After the nation's wealth had been wasted, after tens of thousands of the most promising lives had been sacrificed, after innumerable homes had been laid waste, after all the agony, what then? Would we be any nearer justice? Would wrong be righted, and love take the place of hatred?