at you've got to look beyond the individual--that
you've got to think Big?"

"We leave that to the newspaper men," he retorted cynically. "Our
smiling heroes; our undaunted soldiers! They are heroes, those
Tommies; they are undaunted, but it's because they've got to be.
They're up against it--and the Juggernaut of Fate knows he's got 'em.
And they know he's got 'em. They just eat and drink and are merry for
to-morrow they. . . . Ah! no; that's wrong. We never die out here,
Margaret; only the other fellow does that. And if we become the other
fellow, it's so deuced unexpected I don't suppose it matters much."

"But, we've got to go through with it, haven't we?" she said quietly.

"Of course we have," he answered with a laugh; "and the knowledge of
that fact cuts about as much ice with the men in the mud holes up there
as brave little Belgium or suffering little Serbia. I tell you we're
all dazed, Margaret--just living in a dream. Some of us take it worse
than others, that's all. You want the constitution of an elephant
combined with the intelligence of a cow to fight these days."

"And yet," she said with a grave little smile, "under-lying it all,
there's the big ideal surely. . . . If I didn't think that, if I
didn't know that, I . . . I couldn't go on."

"To which particular ideal do you allude?" he asked cynically. "The
League of Nations; or the triumph of Democracy, or the War to end War.
They all sound so topping, don't they? received with howls of applause
by the men who haven't had their boots off for a week." He thumped the
sand savagely. "Cut the cackle, my dear girl; cut the cackle. This
little performance was started by a few of the puppets who thought they
had a winning hand, and the other puppets called a show down. And then
the game passed out of their hands. They write books about it, and
discover new Gods, and pass new Acts of Parliament--but the thing takes
no notice. It just goes on--inexorably. Man has been dabbling with
stakes that are too big for him, Margaret. And the trouble is that the
cards up in the trenches are getting mighty tattered."

She looked at him curiously. "I'd never have thought it would have
taken you like that, Derek . . . Not quite as badly."

"You formed your opinion in the bad old days, didn't you?" he said
lightly. "When we danced and made love at the Grafton Galleries." She
flushed a little, but did not lower her eyes. "Such a serious girl you
we