as a deep
irony, consequently, in his official relations with her brother, for it
was Lambert who saluted him, who addressed him perpetually as "sir," who
wanted to know if the major would approve of this, that, or the other.
It was grotesque. He wanted to cry aloud against this necessary
servility of a man whose sister couldn't abide the inferiority of its
object.

And he hated war, its waste, its bad management, its discomforts, its
dangers. Was it really true he had involved himself in this filth
because of Sylvia? Then that was funny. By gad, he would see her again!
But he watched his chances dwindle.

While the battalion was in reserve in Lorraine Lambert and he ran into
Dalrymple at the officers' club beneath division headquarters in
Baccarat. George saw him first.

"The intrepid warrior takes his ease," he muttered.

Dalrymple left three staff men he was with and hurried across the room.

"New York must be a lonesome place," he said. "Everybody here. Had a
letter from Sylvia, Lambert."

Why should she write to him? Far from women's eyes he was back at it.
One of the staff men, in fact, wandered over and whispered to George.

"Either you chaps from the trains? Somebody ought to take him to his
billet. General or chief-of-staff might drift through. Believe he'd slap
'em on the shoulder."

"Not a bad idea," George said, contemptuously.

Dalrymple didn't even try to be cordial to him, knowing George wasn't
likely to make trouble as long as they were in France. Lambert took care
of him, steered him home, and a few days later told George with
surprised laughter that the man had been transferred to a showy and
perfectly safe job at G.H.Q.

"Papa, and mama, and Washington!" Lambert laughed.

"Splendid thing for the war," George sneered.

But he raved with Lambert when Goodhue was snatched away by a general
who chose his aides for their names and social attainments.

"Spirit's all through the army," Goodhue complained, bitterly. "Why
doesn't it occur to them to get the right men for the right places?"

He sighed.

"Suppose we'll get through somehow, but there'll be too much mourning
sold at home."

All along that had been in George's mind, and, in his small way, he did
what he could, studying minutely methods of accomplishing his missions
at the minimum cost to his battalion; but on the Vesle he grew
discouraged, seeing his men fall not to rise; or to be lifted to a
stretcher; or to scramble up and st