“That was before we were at war, Mrs. Merserole,” her caller reminds her.
Mrs. Merserole looks up quickly from her clasped hands. “You think that to-day Mr. Robson would not make an unprincipled attack upon—upon a clergyman who did nothing more than his duty?”
Diplomatic though her errand be, Marcia will not pass this challenge to her truthfulness. “I do not say that. Nor do I admit that what he wrote was unprincipled. He wrote what he believed. He would do that again to-morrow. But I do know that he is a broader and more charitable man than he was then.”
“War does not change men’s characters, Miss Ames,” says the rector’s wife austerely.
“Then God help the men!” bursts out Marcia. “And God help the country!”
“Why, my dear!” says the older woman, shaken by the girl’s vehemence. “You think it does? Perhaps you’re right. Yes; I think you’re right. But Mr. Robson—”
“Mrs. Merserole,” breaks in Marcia with apparent irrelevance, “I have heard that your boy picked out the aviation service because it is the most dangerous, and that you told him that he had done what you would choose him to do.”
The other does not reply. But her lips quiver, and her tightly clasped fingers press in on each other. Marcia lays her warm, strong little hand over them.
“You have done a great thing like that. And now I ask you to do a little thing. To forget an old injury.”
“But Mr. Merserole—he feels toward The Guardian—I cannot express it to you,” falters the other.