It was cheap. It was the old game of talking around conversational corners, of whispering behind mental doors. It was insidious, dangerous, and tantalizing. It made between them a bond of lowered voices, of being on the edge of things. Their danger was as spurious as their passion, but Natalie, without humor and without imagination, found the sense of insecurity vaguely attractive.
Fundamentally cold, she liked the idea of playing with fire.
CHAPTER XXIV
When war was not immediately declared the rector, who on the Sunday following that eventful Saturday of the President's speech to Congress had preached a rousing call to arms, began to feel a bit sheepish about it.
“War or no war, my dear,” he said to Delight, “it made them think for as much as an hour. And I can change it somewhat, and use it again, if the time really comes.”
“Second-hand stuff!” she scoffed. “You with your old sermons, and Mother with my old dresses! But it was a good sermon,” she added. “I have hardly been civil to that German laundress since.”
“Good gracious, Delight. Can't you remember that we must love our enemies?”
“Do you love them? You know perfectly well that the moment you get on the other side, if you do, you'll be jerking the cross off your collar and bullying some wretched soldier to give you his gun.”
He had a guilty feeling that she was right.