hat seemed to him and every one a
long, shy, inexpressive evening. Only the small boys were really natural
and animated. They were much impressed and excited by his departure, and
wanted to ask a hundred questions about the life in the trenches. Many
of them Hugh had to promise to answer when he got there. Then he would
see just exactly how things were. Mrs. Britling was motherly and
intelligent about his outfit. "Will you want winter things?" she
asked....

But when he was alone with his father after every one had gone to bed
they found themselves able to talk.

"This sort of thing seems more to us than it would be to a French
family," Hugh remarked, standing on the hearthrug.

"Yes," agreed Mr. Britling. "Their minds would be better prepared....
They'd have their appropriate things to say. They have been educated by
the tradition of service--and '71."

Then he spoke--almost resentfully.

"The older men ought to go before you boys. Who is to carry on if a lot
of you get killed?"

Hugh reflected. "In the stiffest battle that ever can be the odds are
against getting killed," he said.

"I suppose they are."

"One in three or four in the very hottest corners."

Mr. Britling expressed no satisfaction.

"Every one is going through something of this sort."

"All the decent people, at any rate," said Mr. Britling....

"It will be an extraordinary experience. Somehow it seems out of
proportion--"

"With what?"

"With life generally. As one has known it."

"It isn't in proportion," Mr. Britling admitted.

"Incommensurables," said Hugh.

He considered his phrasing. "It's not," he said, "as though one was
going into another part of the same world, or turning up another side of
the world one was used to. It is just as if one had been living in a
room and one had been asked to step outside.... It makes me think of a
queer little thing that happened when I was in London last winter. I
got into Queer Company. I don't think I told you. I went to have supper
with some students in Chelsea. I hadn't been to the place before, but
they seemed all right--just people like me--and everybody. And after
supper they took me on to some people _they_ didn't know very well;
people who had to do with some School of Dramatic Art. There were two or
three young actresses there and a singer and people of that sort,
sitting about smoking cigarettes, and we began talking plays and books
and picture shows and all that stuff; and sudde