had assailed him.

"Are you," he stammered--"you are not--you cannot be a Conscientious
Objector?"

"I can," said the young man.

Mr. Lavender half rose in horror.

"I don't approve," he ejaculated; "I do not approve of you."

"Of course not," said the young man with a little smile at once proud and
sad, "who does? If you did I shouldn't have to eat like this, nor should
I have the consciousness of spiritual loneliness to sustain me. You look
on me as a moral outcast, as a leper. That is my comfort and my
strength. For though I have a genuine abhorrence of war, I know full
well that I could not stick this if it were not for the feeling that I
must not and will not lower myself to the level of mere opportunists like
you, and sink myself in the herd of men in the street."

At hearing himself thus described Mr. Lavender flushed.

"I yield to no one," he said, "in my admiration of principle. It is
because of my principles that I regard you as a----"

"Shirker," put in the young man calmly. "Go on; don't mince words; we're
used to them."

"Yes," said Mr. Lavender, kindling, "a shirker. Excuse me! A renegade
from the camp of Liberty, a deserter from the ranks of Humanity, if you
will pardon me."

"Say a Christian, and have done with it," said the young man.

"No," said Mr. Lavender, who had risen to his feet, "I will not go so far
as that. You are not a Christian, you are a Pharisee. I abhor you."

"And I abhor you," said the young man suddenly. "I am a Christian
Socialist, but I refuse to consider you my brother. And I can tell you
this: Some day when through our struggle the triumph of Christian
Socialism and of Peace is assured, we shall see that you firebrands and
jingoes get no chance to put up your noxious heads and disturb the
brotherhood of the world. We shall stamp you out. We shall do you in.
We who believe in love will take jolly good care that you apostles of
hate get all we've had and more--if you provoke us enough that is."

He stopped, for Mr. Lavender's figure had rigidified on the other side of
the table into the semblance of one who is about to address the House of
Lords.

"I can find here," he cried, "no analogy with religious persecution. This
is a simple matter. The burden of defending his country falls equally on
every citizen. I know not, and I care not, what promises were made to
you, or in what spirit the laws of compulsory service were passed. You
will either serve or go to prison