g of the sort. What else is there to do
now for me?"

Letty's eyes were bright and intense, but her voice was soft and
subdued. She went on after a pause in the same casual voice. "You see
now, Cissie, why I cling to the idea that Teddy is alive. If Teddy is
alive, then even if he is wounded, he will get some happiness out of
it--and all this won't be--just rot. If he is dead then everything is so
desperately silly and cruel from top to bottom--"

She smiled wanly to finish her sentence.

"But, Letty!" said Cissie, "there is the boy!"

"I shall leave the boy to you. Compared with Teddy I don't care _that_
for the boy. I never did. What is the good of pretending? Some women are
made like that."

She surveyed her knitting. "Poor stitches," she said....

"I'm hard stuff, Cissie. I take after mother more than father. Teddy is
my darling. All the tenderness of my life is Teddy. If it goes, it
goes.... I won't crawl about the world like all these other snivelling
widows. If they've killed my man I shall kill. Blood for blood and loss
for loss. I shall get just as close to the particular Germans who made
this war as I can, and I shall kill them and theirs....

"The Women's Association for the Extirpation of the whole breed of War
Lords," she threw out. "If I _do_ happen to hurt--does it matter?"

She looked at her sister's shocked face and smiled again.

"You think I go about staring at nothing," she remarked.... "Not a bit
of it! I have been planning all sorts of things.... I have been thinking
how I could get to Germany.... Or one might catch them in
Switzerland.... I've had all sorts of plans. They can't go guarded for
ever....

"Oh, it makes me despise humanity to see how many soldiers and how few
assassins there are in the world.... After the things we have seen. If
people did their duty by the dagger there wouldn't be such a thing as a
War Lord in the world. Not one.... The Kaiser and his sons and his sons'
sons would know nothing but fear now for all their lives. Fear would
only cease to pursue as the coffin went down into the grave. Fear by
sea, fear by land, for the vessel he sailed in, the train he travelled
in, fear when he slept for the death in his dreams, fear when he waked
for the death in every shadow; fear in every crowd, fear whenever he was
alone. Fear would stalk him through the trees, hide in the corner of the
staircase; make all his food taste perplexingly, so that he would want
to spit it out