h one felt
would rarely rise above banter, and the whole bearing was manly and
attractive. But search the features as he would, Selwyn could not
discover any lurking traces of undiscovered personality. Malcolm's very
frankness seemed to rob him of possession of any hidden, unexpected vein
of individuality. He was essentially a type, and of as clear Anglo-Saxon
origin as if he were living in the days before his breed was modified by
inter-association with other tribes.

Selwyn recalled the words of Mathews: 'Milord, you're a thoroughbred, you
are.' This youth was of a race of thoroughbreds. Maternal heredity had
skipped him altogether; he was a Durwent of Durwents, and heir to all the
distinction and lack of distinction which marked the long line of that
family.

And opposite him was an American whose two generations of Republican
ancestry led to the paths of Dutch and Irish parentage. Selwyn had never
tried to discover the cause why his paternal ancestor had left the Green
Island, or his maternal ancestor the land of dikes and windmills; it was
sufficient that, out of resentment against conditions either avoidable or
unavoidable, each had resolved to endure the ordeal of making his way in
a land of strangers. Austin Selwyn bore the marks of that inheritance no
less clearly than Malcolm Durwent bore the marks of his. In his features
there was a certain repose, as became the part-son of a race that had
produced the art of Rembrandt, but there was a roving Celtic strain as
well that hid itself by turn in his eyes, in his lips, in his smile, in
the lines of his frown. In contrast to the clear Saxon steadiness of
Malcolm Durwent, his own face was constantly touched by lights and
shadows of his mind, lit by the incessant prompting of his thoughts that
demanded their answer to the riddle of life.

Although his build was fairly powerful, Selwyn's well-knit shoulders and
alert movements of body spoke of a physique that was always tuned to
pitch, but one missed the impression of limitless endurance which lay
behind the easy carelessness of Malcolm Durwent's pose.

'I want to ask you, Durwent,' said the American, 'more from the
stand-point of a writer than anything else, if these men of yours who are
going out to fight are actuated by a great sense of patriotism, or a
feeling that the liberty of the world depends on them or--well, in other
words, I am trying to discover what it is that makes you men face death
as if i