“What's the rush, Jane? It is early yet. Let's take a turn out to the Park.”
But Jane insisted on going home. Never before in all her life had she found herself in a mood in which she could with difficulty control her speech. She could not understand how it was that Lloyd Rushbrooke, whom she had always greatly liked, should have become at once distasteful to her. She could hardly bear the look upon his handsome face. His clever, quick-witted fun, which she had formerly enjoyed, now grated horribly. Of all the college boys in her particular set, none was more popular, none better liked, than Lloyd Rushbrooke. Now she was mainly conscious of a desire to escape from his company. This feeling distressed her. She wanted to be alone that she might think it out. That was Jane's way. She always knew her own mind, could always account for her emotions, because she was intellectually honest and had sufficient fortitude to look facts in the face. At the door she did not ask even her friend, Ethel, to come in with her. Nor did she make excuse for omitting this courtesy. That, too, was Jane's way. She was honest with her friends as with herself. She employed none of the little fibbing subterfuges which polite manners approve and which are employed to escape awkward situations, but which, of course, deceive no one. She was simple, sincere, direct in her mental and moral processes, and possessed a courage of the finest quality. Under ordinary circumstances she would have cleared up her thinking and worked her soul through the mist and stress of the rough weather by talking it over with her father or by writing a letter to Larry. But during the days of the past terrible week she had discovered that her father, too, was tempest-tossed to an even greater degree than she was herself; and somehow she had no heart to write to Larry. Indeed, she knew not what to say. Her whole world was in confusion.
And in Winnipeg there were many like her. In every home, while faces carried bold fronts, there was heart searching of the ultimate depths and there was purging of souls. In every office, in every shop, men went about their work resolute to keep minds sane, faces calm, and voices steady, but haunted by a secret something which they refused to call fear—which was not fear—but which as yet they were unwilling to acknowledge and which they were unable to name. With every bulletin from across the sea the uncertainty deepened. Every hour they waited for news of a great victory for the fleet. The second day of the war a rumour of such a victory had come across the wires and had raised hopes for a day which next day were dashed to despair. One ray of light, thin but marvellously bright, came from Belgium. For these six breathless days that gallant little people had barred the way against the onrushing multitudes of Germany's military hosts. The story of the defence of Liege was to the Allies like a big drink of wine to a fainting man. But Belgium could not last. And what of France? What France would do no man could say. It was exceedingly doubtful whether there was in the French soul that enduring quality, whether in the army or in the nation, that would be steadfast in the face of disaster. The British navy was fit, thank God! But as to the army, months must elapse before a British army of any size could be on the fighting line.
Another agonising week passed and still there was no sure word of hope from the Front. In Canada one strong, heartening note had been sounded. The Canadian Parliament had met and with splendid unhesitating unanimity had approved all the steps the Government had taken, had voted large sums for the prosecution of the war, and had pledged Canada to the Empire to the limit of her power. That fearless challenge flung out into the cloud wrapped field of war was like a clear bugle call in the night. It rallied and steadied the young nation, touched her pride, and breathed serene resolve into the Canadian heart. Canadians of all classes drew a long, deep breath of relief as they heard of the action of their Parliament. Doubts, uncertainties vanished like morning mists blown by the prairie breeze. They knew not as yet the magnitude of the task that lay before them, but they knew that whatever it might be, they would not go back from it.
At the end of the second week the last fort in Liege had fallen; Brussels, too, was gone; Antwerp threatened. Belgium was lost. From Belgian villages and towns were beginning to come those tales of unbelievable atrocities that were to shock the world into horrified amazement. These tales read in the Canadian papers clutched men's throats and gripped men's hearts as with cruel fingers of steel. Canadians were beginning to see red. The blood of Belgium's murdered victims was indeed to prove throughout Canada and throughout the world the seed of mighty armies.
At the end of the second week Jane could refrain no longer. She wrote to Larry.
CHAPTER XXIII
A NEUTRAL NATION
The first days of the war were for Larry days of dazed bewilderment and of ever-deepening misery. The thing which he had believed impossible had come. That great people upon whose generous ideals and liberal Christian culture he had grounded a sure hope of permanent peace had flung to the winds all the wisdom, and all justice, and all the humanity which the centuries had garnered for them, and, following the primal instincts of the brute, had hurled forth upon the world ruthless war. Even the great political party of the Social Democrats upon which he had relied to make war impossible had without protest or division proclaimed enthusiastic allegiance to the war programme of the Kaiser. The universities and the churches, with their preachers and professors, had led the people in mad acclaim of war. His whole thinking on the subject had been proved wrong. Passionately he had hoped against hope that Britain would not allow herself to enter the war, but apparently her struggle for peace had been in vain. His first feeling was one of bitter disappointment and of indignation with the great leaders of the British people who had allowed themselves to become involved in a Mid-European quarrel. Sir Edward Grey's calm, moderate—sub-moderate, indeed—exposition of the causes which had forced Britain into war did much to cool his indignation, and Bethmann-Hollweg's cynical explanation of the violation of Belgium's neutrality went far to justify Britain's action consequent upon that outraging of treaty faith. The deliberate initiation of the policy of “frightfulness” which had heaped such unspeakable horrors upon the Belgian people tore the veil from the face of German militarism and revealed in its sheer brutality the ruthlessness and lawlessness of that monstrous system.