Her mouth trembled into scorn.
'Oh, think of the women whose shoe-strings I am not worthy to unloose!—the nurses, the French peasant-women, the women who have given their husbands—their sons.'
His look showed his agitation.
'So we are to be saved—by boys like Desmond—and women like you?'
'Oh, I am a cypher—a nothing!' There was a passionate humiliation in her voice. 'I should be nursing in France—'
'If it weren't for your mother and your sister?'
She nodded. There was a pause. Then the Squire said, in a different tone,
'But you have not answered my question. I should be obliged if you would answer it. How am I, being I—how is a man of my kind to fill his time—and live his life? If the country is in deadly peril—if the ground is shaking beneath our feet—if we are to go on fighting for years, with "our backs to the wall," even I can't go on cataloguing Greek vases. I acknowledge that now. So much I grant you. But what else am I good for?'
The colour flushed in her fair skin, and her eyes filled again with tears.
'Come and help!' she said simply. 'There is so much to do. And for you—a large landowner—there is everything to do.'