Chapter 11 - Page 2

is generally accepted with simple
resignation or merely a little fretful complaint even in quite decent
cottages. It is called--rather prettily, I think--'a love child' and the
nicer the grandparents are, the better they treat it. Mrs. Gracey, the
wife of our rector at Mowbray Wells told me a few days ago that she and
her husband were quite in despair over the excited, almost lawless,
holiday air of the village girls. There are so many young men about and
uniforms have what she calls 'such a dreadful effect.' Giddy and
unreliable young women are wandering about the lanes and fields with
stranger sweethearts at all hours. Even girls who have been good
Sunday-school scholars are becoming insubordinate. She did not in the
least mean to be improperly humorous--in fact she was quite tragic when
she said that the rector felt that he ought to marry, on the spot, every
rambling couple he met. He had already performed the ceremony in a
number of cases when he felt it was almost criminally rash and idiotic,
or would have been in time of peace."

"That was what I meant by speaking of the women who were being swept
over by the chariot of war," said the Duchess. "It involves issues the
women who can think must hold in their minds and treat judicially. One
cannot moralise and be shocked before an advancing tidal wave. It has
always been part of the unreason and frenzy of times of war. When Death
is near, Life fights hard for itself. It does not care who or what it
strikes."

* * * * *

The tidal wave swept on and the uninitiated who formed the mass of
humanity in every country in the world, reading with feverish anxiety
almost hourly newspaper extras every day, tried to hide a secret fear
that no one knew what was really happening or could trust to the
absolute truth of any spoken or published statement. The exultant hope
of to-day was dashed to-morrow. The despair of the morning was lightened
by gleams of hope before night closed, and was darkened and lightened
again and again. Great cities and towns aroused themselves from a
half-somnolent belief in security. Village by village England awakened
to what she faced in common with an amazed and half incredulous world.
The amazement and incredulity were founded upon a certain mistaken
belief in a world predominance of the laws of decency and civilisation.
The statement of piety and morality that the world in question was a
bad one, filled with crime, had somehow so far been accepted with a
guileless reservation in the matter of a ruling majority whose lapses
from virtue were at least not openly vaunted treachery, blows struck at
any unprepared back presenting itself, merciless attacks on innocence
and weakness, and savage gluttings of