brought the war, in
a jump which was like a stab, close. The war and Lindow--their
place--how was it possible that this nightmare in Europe could touch the
peace of the garden, the sunlit view of the river, the trees with birds
singing in them, the scampering of the dogs down the drive? The distant
hint of any connection between the great horror and her own was pain;
she put the thought away.

Then the _Lusitania_ was sunk. All America shouted shame through sobs of
rage. The President wrote a beautiful and entirely satisfactory note.

"It should be war--war. It should be war today," Hugh had said, her
husband. "We only waste time. We'll have to fight sooner or later. The
sooner we begin, the sooner we'll finish."

"Fight!" young Hugh threw at him. "What with? We can just about make
faces at 'em, father."

The boy's father did not laugh. "We had better get ready to do more than
make faces; we've got to get ready." He hammered his hand on the stone
balustrade. "I'm going to Plattsburg this summer, Evelyn."

"I'm going with you." Brock's voice was low and his mouth set, and the
woman, looking at him, saw suddenly that her boy was a man.

"Well, then, as man power is getting low at Lindow, I'll stay and take
care of Mummy. Won't I? We'll do awfully well without them, won't we,
Mum? You can drive Dad's Rolls-Royce roadster, and if you leave on the
handbrake up-hill, I'll never tell."

Father and son had gone off for the month in camp, and, glad as she was
to have the younger boy with her, there was yet an uneasy, an almost
subconscious feeling about him, which she indignantly denied each time
that it raised its head. It never quite phrased itself, this fear, this
wonder if Hugh were altogether as American as his father and brother.
Question the courage and patriotism of her own boy? She flung the
thought from her as again and yet again it came. People of the same
blood were widely different. To Brock and his father it had come easily
to do the obvious thing, to go to Plattsburg. It had not so come to
young Hugh, but that in good time he would see his duty and do it she
would not for an instant doubt. She would not break faith with the lad
in thought. With a perfect delicacy she avoided any word that would
influence him. He knew. All his life he had breathed loyalty. It was she
herself, reading to them night after night through years, who had taught
the boys hero worship--above all, worship of American heroes,
Washin