Then she lay in the dark, facing it squarely.
The things she had said to her father were not true. She didn't want
him to go to France. She didn't want Derry to go. She was glad that
Derry's mother had made him promise. She didn't care who called him a
coward. She cared only to keep her own.
There wasn't any sense in it, anyhow. Why should Daddy and Derry be
blown to pieces--or made blind--or not come back at all? Just because
a barbarian had brought his hordes into Belgium? Well, let Belgium
take care of herself--and France.
She shuddered deeper down into the bed. She wasn't heroic. Hilda had
been right about that. She was willing to knit miles and miles of
wool, to go without meat, to go without wheat, to wear old clothes, to
let the furnace go out and sit shivering in one room by a wood fire,
she was willing to freeze and to starve, but she was not willing to
send her men to France.
She found herself shaking, sobbing--.
Hitherto war had seemed a glorious thing, an inspiring thing. She had
thrilled to think that she was living in a time which matched the days
of Caesar and Alexander and of Napoleon, of that first Richard of
England, of Charlemagne, of Nelson and of Francis Drake, of Grant and
Lee and Lincoln.
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