ur home over there she had interests. In this great town she can
only nurse her grief against me. Ah! this war! It seems to me we are
all in the stomach of a great coiling serpent. We lie there, being
digested. In a way it is better out there in the trenches; they are
beyond hate, they have attained a height that we have not. It is
wonderful how they still can be for going on till they have beaten the
Boche; that is curious and it is very great. Did Barra tell you how,
when they come back--all these fighters--they are going to rule, and
manage the future of the world? But it will not be so. They will mix in
with life, separate--be scattered, and they will be ruled as they were
before. The tongue and the pen will rule them: those who have not seen
the war will rule them."

"Oh!"' cried Noel, "surely they will be the bravest and strongest in the
future."

The painter smiled.

"War makes men simple," he said, "elemental; life in peace is neither
simple nor elemental, it is subtle, full of changing environments, to
which man must adapt himself; the cunning, the astute, the adaptable,
will ever rule in times of peace. It is pathetic, the belief of those
brave soldiers that the-future is theirs."

"He said, a strange thing," murmured Noel; "that they were all a little
mad."

"He is a man of queer genius--Barra; you should see some of his earlier
pictures. Mad is not quite the word, but something is loosened, is
rattling round in them, they have lost proportion, they are being forced
in one direction. I tell you, mademoiselle, this war is one great
forcing-house; every living plant is being made to grow too fast, each
quality, each passion; hate and love, intolerance and lust and avarice,
courage and energy; yes, and self-sacrifice--all are being forced and
forced beyond their strength, beyond the natural flow of the sap, forced
till there has come a great wild luxuriant crop, and then--Psum! Presto!
The change comes, and these plants will wither and rot and stink. But we
who see Life in forms of Art are the only ones who feel that; and we are
so few. The natural shape of things is lost. There is a mist of blood
before all eyes. Men are afraid of being fair. See how we all hate not
only our enemies, but those who differ from us. Look at the streets
too--see how men and women rush together, how Venus reigns in this
forcing-house. Is it not natural that Youth about to die should yearn
for pleasure, for l