Chapter 4 - Page 2

imagination has yet conceived what it may be."

"That is why the poor human things are clutching at each other, and
finding values and attractions where they did not see them before.
Colonel Marion and his wife were here yesterday. He is a stout man over
fifty and has a red face and prominent eyes. His wife has been so
occupied with herself and her children that she had almost forgotten he
existed. She looked at and listened to him as if she were a bride."

"I have seen changes of that sort myself," said Coombe. "He is more
alive himself. He has begun to be of importance. And men like him have
been killed already--though the young ones go first."

"The young ones know that, and they clutch the most frantically. That is
what I am seeing in young eyes everywhere. Mere instinct makes it
so--mere uncontrollable instinct which takes the form of a sort of
desperateness at facing the thousand chances of death before they have
lived. They don't know it isn't actual fear of bullets and shrapnel.
Sometimes they're afraid it's fear and it makes them sick at themselves
and determined to grin and hide it. But it isn't fear--it's furious
Nature protesting."

"There are hasty bridals and good-bye marriages being made in all
ranks," Coombe put in. "They are inevitable."

"God help the young things--those of them who never meet again--and
perhaps, also, some of those who do. The nation ought to take care of
the children. If there is a nation left, God knows they will be needed,"
the Duchess said. "One of my footmen who 'joined up' has revealed an
unsuspected passion for a housemaid he used to quarrel with, and who
seemed to detest him. I have three women in my household who have
soldier lovers in haste to marry them. I shall give them my blessing and
take care of the wives when they are left behind. One can be served by
old men and married women--and one can turn cottages into small
orphanages if the worst happens."

There was a new vigour in her splendid old face and body.

"There is a reason now why I am the Dowager Duchess of Darte," she went
on, "and why I have money and houses and lands. There is a reason why I
have lived when it sometimes seemed as if my usefulness was over. There
are uses for my money--for my places--for myself. Lately I have found
myself saying, as Mordecai said to Esther, 'Who knowest whether thou art
not come to the kingdom for such a time as this.' A change is taking
place in me too. I can do more because there is so much more to do. I
can even use my hands better. Look at them."

She held them out that he might see them--her beautiful old-ivory
fingers, so long