"My Big Army book's gone to pot, of course!" Roger went on. "At present anyhow!..."
"The War's done for the Improved Tories, I suppose?"
"Absolutely. They've all enlisted. Ashley Earls is in the R.A.M.C. He went in last week. He couldn't go before ... he was ill. You remember Ernest Carr. He tried to enlist when the War began, but he was so crippled with rheumatism that they hoofed him out. Well, he's been living like a hermit ever since to get himself cured, and he says he's going on splendidly. He thinks he'll be able to join before long...."
"I wonder if I ought to join," he went on, more to himself than to Henry. "I've thought and thought about it ... but I can't make up my mind. I've got a decent connexion at the Bar now, and if I go into the Army, I shall lose it. The fellows who don't go will get my work. And if the War lasts as long as Kitchener reckons, I shall be forgotten by the time I get back ... and I shall have to begin again at an age when most men have either established themselves or cleared out of the profession altogether. I want to do what's right, but I can't reconcile my two duties, Quinny. I've a duty to England, of course, but I think I have a bigger duty to Rachel and Eleanor. If they'd only conscript us all, this problem wouldn't arise ... not so acutely anyhow. I suppose the Government is having a pretty hard time, but they do seem to act the goat rather! There's a great deal of talk about a man's duty to England, but very little talk about England's duty to the man. However!..." He did not finish his sentence, but shrugged his shoulders and looked away.
"I don't feel happy," he went on after a while, "when I see other men joining up, but I've got to think of Rachel and Eleanor.... When I was going to meet you, Quinny, I passed a chap on crutches. His leg was off!... He made me feel damned ashamed. I suppose that's why they let the wounded go about in uniform so freely; to make you feel ashamed of yourself. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid I shall rush off to the recruiting office in a burst of emotion ... and I must think of Rachel and Eleanor!..."
"I don't see why you should go before I do, Roger," Henry interjected.
"Are you going, Quinny?"
Henry flushed. It hurt him that there should be any question about it.
"Yes," he said.
"I don't think of you as a soldier, Quinny!"