Braithwaite stared at Tabs to see whether he were jesting; then smiled
in relieved friendship at this proof of comradeship from an unexpected
quarter. "Yes, perhaps it was that--a future kindliness, where we should
all be men together, neither free nor bond." Then again to his host,
"You sent us out there where everything was censored. Scarcely a whisper
of the truth reached you. The very war-correspondents were instructed to
delete the horror and to write nothing that would disturb your calm.
We've come back, what are left of us; we think you ought to know what
really happened. It isn't that we take much pleasure in telling you, but
we think that if you knew, you might be persuaded to keep at least some
of your promises. And what do you do? You reassert your privilege to
despise us. You stuff your fingers in your ears and talk about caste,
and forgetting the war, and getting back to work. Sir Tobias, I'm afraid
I'm being far too personal, but you're a sample of millions who weren't
there. You're living in a totally altered world of whose very existence
you're content to be unaware. Your complacency drives men like myself to
the point of madness. We hold that you have no right to be complacent
until the bill you put your hand to has been settled. I don't know how
Lord Taborley feels; he's not expressed----"

"Tabs feels exactly the way you do and so do I." It was Terry speaking,
like the shrill courage of a bugle answering the slow bass of a
trumpet-call. "We're the world that purchased victory--we three, while
the rest of the world sat back. It was men like you two who got gassed,
and wrenched, and tortured, and girls like myself who patched you up and
flirted with you so that we might send you back to the Front
cheery--girls like myself who hadn't known love, or children, or
anything but a nursery sort of happiness. We three and people like us
understand, because we paid the price together."

"Really, Terry, I must confess there are times when you shock me." As
Lady Beddow rose from her seat, she was the picture of disapproval. From
the door, which the butler held open for her, she glanced back. "I think
this discussion has gone _very_ far."

As she swept out, she called across her shoulder, as one might call to a
pet dog, "Come, Terry."

VII

But Terry did not come; she sat on tightly, just as if she were a man
among men. Until coffee had been served and the room was free from
servants, there was a pretense