Delight flushed painfully.
“Perhaps,” she admitted. “But is it right just to let it go at that? If you like people, it seems wrong just to stand by and let others ruin their lives for them.”
“Only very weak men let women ruin their lives.”
But already she began to understand the situation.
“There's a weakness that is only a sort of habit. It may come from not wanting to hurt somebody.” Delight was pulling nervously at her gloves. “And there is this to be said, too. If there is what you call weakness, wouldn't the army be good for it? It makes men, some times, doesn't it?”
For a sickening moment, Audrey thought of Chris. War had made Chris, but it had killed him, too.
“Have you thought of one thing?” she asked. “That in trying to make this young man, whoever it is, he may be hurt, or even worse?”
“He would have to take his chance, like the rest.”
She went a little pale, however. Audrey impulsively put an arm around her.
“And this—woman is the little long-legged girl who used to give signals to her father when the sermon was too long! Now—what can I do about this youth who can't make up his own mind?”