or, and was regarding it unconscious of
her. Noel turned quickly to the door; the last thing she saw was the
little girl nursing her doll.

In the street the painter began at once in his rapid French:

"I ought not to have asked you to come, mademoiselle; I did not know our
friend Barra was there. Besides, my wife is not fit to receive a lady;
vous voyez qu'il y a de la manie dans cette pauvre tote. I should not
have asked you; but I was so miserable."

"Oh!" murmured Noel, "I know."

"In our 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 p