in the middle of a raid--by chance. But we are safe--that is
enough."

"But the deaths?"

He shook his head.

"But there must have been many deaths!"

"I do not know. There will have been deaths. There usually are." He
shrugged his shoulders.

Christine sat up and gave a little screech.

"Ah!" She burst out, her features suddenly transformed by enraged
protest. "Why wilt thou act thy cold man?"

He was amazed at the sudden nervous strength she showed.

"But, my little one--"

She cried:

"Why wilt thou act thy cold man? I shall become mad in this sacred
England. I shall become totally mad. You are all the same, all, all,
men and women. You are marvels--let it be so!--but you are not human.
Do you then wish to be taken for telegraph-poles? Always you are
pretending something. Pretending that you have no sentiments. And you
are soaked in sentimentality. But no! You will not show it! You will
not applaud your soldiers in the streets. You will not salute your
flag. You will not salute even a corpse. You have only one phrase: 'It
is nothing'. If you win a battle, 'It is nothing' If you lose one, 'It
is nothing'. If you are nearly killed in an air-raid, 'It is nothing'.
And if you were killed outright and could yet speak, you would say,
with your eternal sneer, 'It is nothing'. You other men, you make love
with the air of turning on a tap. As for your women, god knows--! But
I have a horror of Englishwomen. Prudes but wantons. Can I not guess?
Always hypocrites. Always holding themselves in. My god, that pinched
smile! And your women of the world especially. Have they a natural
gesture? Yet does not everyone know that they are rotten with vice and
perversity? And your actresses!... And they talk of us! Ah, well! For
me, I can say that I earn my living honestly, every son of it. For all
that I receive, I give. And they would throw me on to the pavement to
starve, me whose function in society--"

She collapsed in sobs, and with averted face held out her arms in
appeal. G.J., at once admiring and stricken with compassion, bent
and clasped her neck, and kissed her, and kept his mouth on hers.
Her tears dropped freely on his cheeks. Her sobs shook both of them.
Gradually the sobs decreased in violence and frequency. In an infant's
broken voice she murmured into his mouth:

"My wolf! Is it true--that thou didst carry me here in thy arms? I am
so proud."

He was not in the slightest degree irritated or grieved by h