ave been a preacher, after all; then I couldn't have asked it
of myself, as I must, now I'm a lawyer. And you believe it's a holy war,
Editha?" he suddenly addressed her. "Oh, I know you do! But you wish me
to believe so, too?"

She hardly knew whether he was mocking or not, in the ironical way he
always had with her plainer mind. But the only thing was to be outspoken
with him.

"George, I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and
every cost. If I've tried to talk you into anything, I take it all
back."

"Oh, I know that, Editha. I know how sincere you are, and how--I wish I
had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as
you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone;
though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war--so
stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled
reasonably?"

"Because," she said, very throatily again, "God meant it to be war."

"You think it was God? Yes, I suppose that is what people will say."

"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?"

"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into
men's keeping to work it as they pleased."

"Now, George, that is blasphemy."

"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket
Providence," he said, and then he rose to go.

"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Dinner at Balcom's Works was at one
o'clock.

"I'll come back to supper, if you'll let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a
convert."

"Well, you may come back, on that condition."

"All right. If I don't come, you'll understand."

He went away without kissing her, and she felt it a suspension of their
engagement. It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a
tremendous experience, and she was being equal to it. While she stood
looking after him, her mother came out through one of the long windows
onto the veranda, with a catlike softness and vagueness.

"Why didn't he stay to dinner?"

"Because--because--war has been declared," Editha pronounced, without
turning.

Her mother said, "Oh, my!" and then said nothing more until she had sat
down in one of the large Shaker chairs and rocked herself for some time.
Then she closed whatever tacit passage of thought there had been in her
mind with the spoken words: "Well, I hope _he_ won't go."

"And _I_ hope he _will_," the girl said, and confronted her mother with
a stormy exaltation that wo