“What’s the good of dying for it?” he queried. “Much better to live for it, and do useful work for it! Surely you agree? Suppose you—or I—or any one—dies for it—you or I or that ‘any one’ must become absolutely useless,—a mere lump of dead matter, burnt or buried and forgotten in a week! What does England gain by that? Dear child, do be reasonable! England is a charming country, and if any of us who are alive to-day can assist in adding to its charm by either our talents or our personalities, so much the better. But to die for it!—just think, by way of example, how much grace your presence gives to this garden!—a presence which, if removed, it would be difficult to replace!”
His eyes twinkled humorously,—and she hardly knew whether to be flattered or annoyed.
“If the news of the coming war be true,” she said, “many presences will be removed, never to be replaced.”
“True!” he replied. “Unquestionably true! But the removal of a considerable majority of useless persons is not so much a loss as a gain to the world. I speak from the logical and philosophic standpoint. I do not suppose the world at large is very much the worse for the destruction of Pompeii, for example. It does not appear that any one of particular note or service in the city had enough of high or singular reputation to make his loss a lasting memorial of fame. See here!” and taking her gently by the arm he stopped at an ant-hill raised in the grass path along which they strolled. “There’s a busy world! Look at the little brown citizens scampering here and there on the chief business of life, eating and breeding! Now for an eruption of Vesuvius!”—and he struck a fusee from a small box he carried, and flung it alight on the ant-hill. “What a scrimmage! What heroic deaths! Look well!—” and, as she stooped, watching the insect tragedy with keen interest and pity,—“You occupy for the moment the position of a fair goddess uplifted above the tortures of a race of beings with whom you have no concern. You can see three or four brave warriors endeavouring to drag the fusee out of the vortex in which it burns,—Horatius keeping the bridge was never more heroic than they! They go to certain death—those that perish are instantly replaced by others equally brave. Well!” and he smiled as she raised her beautiful, blue, limpid eyes to his in questioning wonder—“You look as though you asked for a meaning—it is simply that my fusee was as an eruption of Vesuvius to this particular ant-Pompeii,—and if, as the newspapers say, there is going to be a war with Germany you may take it that God, or Fate, or whatever you choose to call Natural Law, is merely flinging a fusee into an ant-hill.”
“Then you think human beings no more valuable than ants?” she demanded, half angrily.
“Less valuable sometimes,” he responded placidly. “When they are greasy multi-millionaires I give the preference to respectable ants. Every one has different tastes of course—but personally, speaking for myself alone, I would rather be an ant than a millionaire grocer.”
She laughed,—she found him thoroughly amusing,—and—yes!—he was certainly cleverer and more entertaining than Jack! He watched her, admiring with an artist’s eye the flecks of gold hair against the whiteness of her neck. He took one or two puffs at his pipe.
“I like to hear you laugh!” he said. “You do it prettily!”
She gave him a quaint little curtsey.
“Thanks!”