ll--no one who is
not a fool or a liar can believe. I would like to work in a hospital; I
would like to go and help poor boys like you. Because I am a German they
would throw me out a hundred times, even if I was good. It is the same
in Germany and France and Russia, everywhere. But do you think I will
believe in love and Christ and a God and all that?--not I! I think we
are animals--that's all! Oh! yes--you fancy it is because my life has
spoiled me. It is not that at all--that's not the worst thing in life.
Those men are not ni-ice, like you, but it's their nature, and," she
laughed, "they help me to live, which is something for me anyway. No, it
is the men who think themselves great and good, and make the war with
their talk and their hate, killing us all--killing all the boys like
you, and keeping poor people in prison, and telling us to go on hating;
and all those dreadful cold-blooded creatures who write in the
papers--the same in my country, just the same; it is because of all them
that I think we are only animals."

He got up, acutely miserable. He could see her following him with her
eyes, and knew she was afraid she had driven him away. She said
coaxingly: "Don't mind me talking, ni-ice boy. I don't know any one to
talk to. If you don't like it, I can be quiet as a mouse."

He muttered:

"Oh! go on, talk away. I'm not obliged to believe you, and I don't."

She was on her feet now, leaning against the wall; her dark dress and
white face just touched by the slanting moonlight; and her voice came
again, slow and soft and bitter:

"Well, look here, ni-ice boy, what sort of a world is it, where millions
are being tortured--horribly tortured, for no fault of theirs, at all? A
beautiful world, isn't it! 'Umbug! Silly rot, as you boys call it. You
say it is all 'Comrade'! and braveness out there at the front, and
people don't think of themselves. Well, I don't think of myself veree
much. What does it matter--I am lost now, anyway; but I think of my
people at home, how they suffer and grieve. I think of all the poor
people there and here who lose those they love, and all the poor
prisoners. Am I not to think of them? And if I do, how am I to believe
it a beautiful world, ni-ice boy?"

He stood very still, biting his lips.

"Look here! We haf one life each, and soon it is over. Well, I think
that is lucky."

He said resentfully:

"No! there's more than that."

"Ah!" she went on softly; "you think the war is