helped," he said, tremulously, after a death-like
silence wherein the breathing of each was distinctly audible. "I suppose
it's in one's make-up," he continued, as though pleading with an
invisible accuser who was sitting there in judgment upon the son of his
old friend. "It's probably like an ear for music, an eye for color, an
aptitude for this or that pursuit in life--just stuck in, you know,
without apparent cause; and so with the stuff that makes soldiers."
Then, turning in a sudden fury, he thundered: "But the hell of it is,
that every born male baby should be then and there a born soldier, else
nature has blundered in making it a male!--for a boy-child that comes
into the world without that divine element which later would make it
joyfully die for its country, ought to be a girl-child! I'm not sure
that it ought to be anything at all, judging from the nobility our
girls, our women, have always shown when their country bleeds! There's
Marian Strong, possessed with the courage of a lion--yes, sir, a lion! I
don't understand you; I don't understand anything--I'm damned if I
do!--not anything at all!"

Again, except for the drumming pencil, the same sickening stillness
filled the room. When Mr. Strong was heard outside talking to a member
of his staff, the old soldier and the young slacker looked at each other
quickly, almost guiltily, as if they had nearly been surprised in a
crime. To their relief he turned and descended the stairs, but the
Colonel tilted his chair until he could see the courthouse clock, saying
drily:

"He'll be back in a few minutes. The draft registration is tomorrow.
What are we going to do?"

Jeb felt as though his body were a sponge that had absorbed all the
sickening heaviness extant throughout the world. There was a strong
tugging within that demanded of him to cry aloud his intention to
enlist, but another personality whimpered desperately, "I can't--I
can't!" His own face now was drawn as the Colonel's had been; his eyes
seemed filmy, and when he spoke his voice was lifeless.

"I know it is," he said.

It did not escape the Colonel that Jeb had replied directly to the thing
which most concerned him. The draft was his evil fetish; second in
importance came the question of what he should do, or whether Mr. Strong
might return and be a witness to his disgrace--yet the Colonel even now
was unwilling to call it this. Applied to any one else--yes! Treating
with any one else he would doub