Jacks
in the filthy pool. Its young mother held it safe by the tilted edge of
its petticoats. She looked up at them and smiled. They smiled back again
and turned away.

It was quiet on the south side by the Barracks. Small, sober groups of
twos and threes strolled there, or stood with their faces pressed close
against the railings, peering into the barrack yard. Motionless,
earnest and attentive, they stared at the men in khaki moving about on
the other side of the railings. They were silent, fascinated by the men
in khaki. Standing safe behind the railing, they stared at them with an
awful, sombre curiosity. And the men in khaki stared back, proud,
self-conscious, as men who know that the hour is great and that it is
their hour.

"Nicky," Veronica said, "I wish Michael wouldn't say things like that."

"He's dead right, Ronny. That isn't the way to take it, getting drunk
and excited, and rushing about making silly asses of themselves. They
_are_ rather swine, you know."

"Yes; but they're pathetic. Can't you see how pathetic they are? Nicky,
I believe I love the swine--even the poor drunken ones with the pink
paper feathers--just because they're English; because awful things are
going to happen to them, and they don't know it. They're English."

"You think God's made us all like that? He _hasn't_."

They found Anthony in the Mall, driving up and down, looking for them.
He had picked up Dorothy and Aunt Emmeline and Uncle Morrie.

"We're going down to the Mansion House," he said, "to hear the
Proclamation. Will you come?"

But Veronica and Nicholas were tired of crowds, even of historic crowds.
Anthony drove off with his car-load, and they went home.

"I never saw Daddy so excited," Nicky said.

But Anthony was not excited. He had never felt calmer or cooler in his
life.

He returned some time after midnight. By that time it had sunk into him.
Germany _had_ defied the ultimatum and England _had_ declared war
on Germany.

He said it was only what was to be foreseen. He had known all the time
that it would happen--really.

The tension of the day of the ultimatum had this peculiar psychological
effect that all over England people who had declared up to the last
minute that there would be no War were saying the same thing as Anthony
and believing it.

Michael was disgusted with the event that had put an end to the Irish
Revolution. It was in this form that he conceived his first grudge
against the War.