now. She raised her right hand in the old
impulsive gesture to punish his presumption with the maximum of
humiliation; and this time, also, he caught her wrist, but he didn't
hold it away. He brought it closer, bent his head, and pressed his lips
against her fingers.

He was startled by the retreat of colour from her face. He had never
seen it so white. He let her wrist go. She grasped the table's edge. She
commenced to laugh, but there was no laughter in her blank, colourless
expression. A feminine voice without accent came to them:

"Sylvia! How can you laugh?"

He glanced up. Mrs. Planter stood in the study doorway. Sylvia
straightened; apparently controlled herself. Her colour returned.

"It was Mr. Morton," she explained, unevenly. "He said something so
absurdly funny. Perhaps he hasn't grasped this tragedy."

The others came in, a voluble, horrified group.

"What's the matter with you, George?" Blodgett bellowed. "Don't you
understand what's happened?"

"Not quite," George said, looking at Sylvia, "but I intend to find out."

XIV

To find out, George appreciated at once, would be no simple task.
Immediately Sylvia raised new defences. She seemed abetted by this
incredible happening on a gray sea.

"I shall go," Lambert said. "How about you, George?"

"Why should I go?" George asked. "I haven't thought about it yet."

The scorn in Sylvia's eyes made him uneasy. Why did people have to be so
impulsive? That was the way wars were made.

During the days that followed he did think about it too absorbingly for
comfort, weighing to the penny the sacrifice his unlikely going would
involve. An inherent instinct for a fight could scarcely be satisfied at
such a cost. Patriotism didn't enter his calculations at all. He
believed it had resounding qualities only because it was hollow, being
manufactured exactly as a drum is made. Surely there were enough
impulsive and fairly useless people to do such a job.

Then without warning Wandel confused his apparently flawless logic.
Certainly Wandel was the least impulsive of men and he was also capable
of uncommon usefulness, yet within a week of the sinking he asked George
if he didn't want to move to his apartment to keep things straight
during a long absence.

"Where are you going, Driggs?"

"I've been drifting too long," Wandel answered. "Unless I go somewheres,
do something, I'll become as mellow as Dolly. I've not been myself since
the business started. I s