I think he saw the effect he had produced on me and, shrewd lawyer that he was, he did not insist. I left him, exceedingly flattered and already inclined to the pleasant ways he opened to me.
* * * * *
Just why I should feel any compunction is the thing that surprises me, now. Yet I do feel,—well, if not compunction, a little uneasiness. After all, up to now, whatever I have done has been done impulsively, without a second thought as to the advantages or disadvantages to me. This is another thing. For the first time, I am looking on life with a middle-aged estimating of values,—and to-night is like a valedictory to a youth that has fled.
In one way I almost resent the very frankness of his discussion with me. For now I am somehow uneasily conscious that there must be a certain grim deliberation about my future conduct. And I ask myself again, “Is this a new phase of life into which I have entered,—a new milestone left behind?”
* * * * *
There are other things which haunt me. I know that with Brinsmade’s influence with the French Government it would be an easy thing for him to procure my discharge and, under the circumstances, with my past record and my present condition, who could criticize me? I have the feeling that this is in the back of his mind, and looking ahead and wondering what may happen when I meet Anne again, I cannot help wondering if to-night I am not stepping out from the bonds which have forged my destiny here to a foreign land, to those whose every thought and action is strange to my traditions. The thing is so obvious I cannot avoid facing it. If only it had come unperceived and by hidden ways: would it have been easier for my pride and my self-respect?
* * * * *
The trouble is that during my convalescence I have been aware that the terrific strain on my physical energy has left a moral inclination towards the easy way through the future. This physical and moral vitality in us is of course inseparable. I have noticed that as men’s bodies grow old a tolerance of social laxities comes with it. Women in moments of physical exhaustion are most vulnerable. The effect of shell-shock on the moral fabric, even in officers of the highest character, is well known. And then, there is something else. Comrades of mine, who have fought with me with unimaginable bravery, return from death with the feeling that they have spent all their vital energy and looking to society to assure their future, as a right acquired.
To-night I feel old, with the sense of duty accomplished. I have done quite enough, I tell myself, in my passage through the inferno of war. If now, when opportunity offers, it pleases me to dispense with the bruising struggle for existence, who has the right to judge of my actions? Certainly not those who have not dared what I have dared.
* * * * *