e. "You
see," he went on, "I--I--well, maybe, I'm a product of extended peace,
as Simec puts it. No doubt I'm soft. But this war--I've never talked nor
let myself think much about the war--but this whole thing of sacrifice
got under me from the very first.... Young men, thousands, hundreds of
thousands of them, yes, millions, torn from their homes, from their
mothers, their fathers--their wives, for what? To be blown into
shapeless, unrecognizable clay, to be maimed, made useless for life. My
God! It has kept me awake nights!"

"Colcord"--Simec's white eyes rested professionally upon the host--"let
us get to the root of your state of mind; your brief is for the
individual as against the common good, is it not?"

Colcord frowned.

"Oh, I haven't any brief, Simec; I've never reasoned about the thing,
that is, in a cold, scientific way. It's a matter of heart, I
suppose--of instinct. I just can't seem to stand the calculating, sordid
wastage of young life and all that it involves. Now, of course, it has
come closer home. And it's terrible."

"You never would shoot anything for sport, would you, old fellow?" said
Latham, sympathetically, "not even pheasants."

Colcord tossed his beautifully modelled head.

"Latham, I tell you, I'm soft; I'm the ultimate product of peace and
civilization."

"Yes, you're soft, terribly so," smiled Dane. "I ought to know; I played
opposite you at tackle for two years."

"Stuff! You understand what I mean, Jerry; I guess you all do. I've
never talked this way before; as I say, I've always kept the war in the
background, tried to gloss it over, forget it. But I couldn't; I've done
a heap of thinking." He sat bolt upright, his clinched fist upon the
table. "All these young chaps herded together and suddenly turned loose
from all they've known and done and thought--I tell you I can't duck it
any more."

"I know, old chap." Arnold Bates, who wrote light society novels, spoke
soothingly. "It is--rotten. But what are you going to do about it?"

Colcord's fine brow was wrinkled painfully.

"Nothing, Arnold, nothing. That's the trouble; you have to sit still and
watch this wrecking of civilization or else get out and take a hack at
the thing yourself. I can't do that; not unless I have to." He paused.
"I've had a good time in this life; things have always come easily--"

Sybil Latham was regarding him contemplatively.

"Yes," she murmured, "I don't know a man who has impressed me as so