carry the name--was it worth
while? Yes, by Jove, it was worth it all to be able to give a man like
Stephen Wickes to his country. For Stephen Wickes was a fine stalwart
lad, a good soldier, steady as a rock, with a patient, cheery courage
that nothing could daunt or break. But for a man's self was it worth
while?

Jack had no thought of wife and family. There was Adrien. She had been a
great pal before the war, but since his return she had seemed different.
Everyone seemed different. The war had left many gaps, former pals had
formed other ties, many had gone from the town. Even Adrien had drifted
away from the old currents of life. She seemed to have taken up with
young Stillwell, whom Jack couldn't abide. Stillwell had been turned
down by the Recruiting Officer during the war--flat feet, or something.
True, he had done great service in Red Cross, Patriotic Fund, Victory
Loan work, and that sort of thing, and apparently stood high in the
Community. His father had doubled the size of his store and had been a
great force in all public war work. He had spared neither himself nor
his son. The elder Stillwell, high up in the Provincial Political world,
saw to it that his son was on all the big Provincial War Committees.
Rupert had all the shrewd foresight and business ability of his father,
which was saying a good deal. He began to assume the role of a promising
young capitalist. The sources of his income no one knew--fortunate
investments, people said. And his Hudson Six stood at the Rectory gate
every day. Well, not even for Adrien would Jack have changed places with
Rupert Stillwell. For Jack Maitland held the extreme and, in certain
circles, unpopular creed that the citizen who came richer out of a war
which had left his country submerged in debt, and which had drained away
its best blood and left it poorer in its manhood by well-nigh seventy
thousand of its noblest youth left upon the battlefields of the various
war fronts and by the hundreds of thousands who would go through life
a burden to themselves and to those to whom they should have been a
support--that citizen was accursed. If Adrien chose to be a friend
of such a man, by that choice she classified herself as impossible of
friendship for Jack. It had hurt a bit. But what was one hurt more or
less to one whom the war had left numb in heart and bereft of ambition?
He was not going to pity himself. He was lucky indeed to have his body
and nerve still sound and