After all, however serious she had believed herself to
be, it had been a game, a career; for in times of peace one must invent
the vital interests of life, and one's success or failure depends upon
one's powers of creating and sustaining the delusion. Only two things in
life were real, love and war.
Gisela, like many women of dominating intellect and personality, had
exhausted her power of sex-love with her first unfortunate but prolonged
passion, and although she had no hatred of men, and indeed liked many
and craved their society, she gave her real sympathies and affections
to her women friends. She had no intimates, and this, perhaps, was one
secret of her power. A certain aloofness is essential in intellectual
leadership. But if she had no talent for intimacy she had much for
friendship, and the friends of her inner circle were all women, partly
because there was no waste of time fending off love-making, partly
because there were more interests in common, consequently a deeper bond.
To-night she was filled with an irresistible pity and a longing to set
them free. But her hands were tied. She dared not even go to Great
Headquarters and protest against the terrible fate of the young girls of
Lille. She would have accomplished no good and become an instant object
of suspicion.
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