"And such a different Drusilla. Do you think that the Drusilla of the old days would have built an altar?"
And it was because of Drusilla's letter that Derry took Jean that afternoon to the great Library with the gold dome and guided her to a corridor made beautiful by the brush of an artist who had painted "The Occupations of the Day"; in one lunette a primitive man and woman knelt before a pile of stones on which burned a sacred flame. Above them was blue sky--flowers grew within reach of their hands--the fields stretched beyond.
There was no getting out of the Witherspoon dinner, and it was when Ralph greeted Jean that he said to her, "You are lovelier than ever."
She smiled at him. "It is because my heart is singing--"
She nodded. "In three days the song will cease--the lights will go out, and the curtain will fall--the end of the world will come."
"He goes back to camp. I don't expect to see him again before he sails."
"Let me say this--that I acted like a cad; I'd like to feel that you've forgiven me."
"I have forgotten, which is better, isn't it?"
"How sweet you are--and all the sweetness is Derry's. Well, when I go over, will you pray for me, my dear?"
He was in dead earnest. "There are so few women--who pray--but I rather fancy that you must--"
All around them was surging talk. "How strange it seems," Jean said, "that we should be speaking of such things, here--"
"No," Ralph said, "it is not strange. I have a feeling that I shan't come back."
Alma Drew on the other side of him claimed his attention. "War is the great sensational opportunity. And there are people who like patriotism of the sound-the-trumpet-beat-the-drum variety--"
"You said that rather cleverly, Alma," Ralph told her, "but you mustn't forget that was the kind of patriotism our forefathers had, and it seemed rather effective."
"Men aren't machines," Jean said hotly. "They are flesh and blood, and so are women--a fife and drum or a bag-pipe means more to them than just crude music; the blood of their ancestors thrilled to the sound."
"It is all savage," Alma said, crisply and coolly, "We are all murderers. We are teaching our men to run Germans through with bayonets, and trying to make ourselves think that they aren't breaking the sixth commandment. Yet in times of peace, when a man kills he goes to the electric chair--"
