“You’re talking through your hat, Marmaduke,” she exclaimed with some irritation. “Oliver’s a straight, clean, English soldier.”
“I’ve been doing my best to tell you so,” said Doggie.
“But you seem to be criticizing him because he’s concealing something behind what you call his panache.”
“Not criticizing, dear. Only stating. I think I’m more Oliverian than you.”
“I’m not Oliverian,” cried Peggy, with burning cheeks. “And I don’t see why we should discuss him like this. All I said was that Oliver, who has made himself a distinguished man and will be even more distinguished, and, at any rate, knows what he’s talking about, doesn’t worry his head with social reconstruction and all that sort of rot. I’ve come here to talk about you, not about Oliver. Let us leave him out of the question.”
“Willingly,” said Doggie. “I never had any reason to love Oliver; but I must do him justice. I only wanted to show you that he must be a bigger man than you imagine.”
“I’m glad to hear you say so,” cried Peggy, with a flash of the eyes. “I hope it’s true.”
“The war’s such a whacking big thing, you see,” he said with a conciliatory smile. “No one can prophesy exactly what’s going to come out of it. But the whole of human society … the world, the whole of civilization, is being stirred up like a Christmas pudding. The war’s bound to change the trend of all human thought. There must be an entire rearrangement of social values.”
“I’m sorry; but I don’t see it,” said Peggy.
Doggie again wrinkled his brow and looked at her, and she returned his glance stonily.