released his hand and drank the rest of his lemonade, and she added,
"Have mine, too," but he shook his head in answering, "I've no business
to think so, unless I act so, too."

Her heart stopped a beat before it pulsed on with leaps that she felt in
her neck. She had noticed that strange thing in men; they seemed to feel
bound to do what they believed, and not think a thing was finished when
they said it, as girls did. She knew what was in his mind, but she
pretended not, and she said, "Oh, I am not sure."

He went on as if to himself without apparently heeding her. "There's
only one way of proving one's faith in a thing like this."

She could not say that she understood, but she did understand.

He went on again. "If I believed--if I felt as you do about this war--Do
you wish me to feel as you do?"

Now she was really not sure; so she said, "George, I don't know what you
mean."

He seemed to muse away from her as before. "There is a sort of
fascination in it. I suppose that at the bottom of his heart every man
would like at times to have his courage tested; to see how he would
act."

"How can you talk in that ghastly way!"

"It _is_ rather morbid. Still, that's what it comes to, unless you're
swept away by ambition, or driven by conviction. I haven't the
conviction or the ambition, and the other thing is what it comes to with
me. I ought to have 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. "Or, 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 G