In fact, quite the reverse." He smiled again.
"Really sometimes, for a row of pins, I'd have turned conscientious
objector."
Mrs. Naylor looked apprehensively at the General: would he explode? No,
he took it quite quietly. "You're a man who can afford to say it, Alec,"
he remarked, with a nod that was almost approving.
Naylor looked affectionately at his son and turned to Beaumaroy. "And
what's the war done to you?" he asked. And this question did draw from
the General, if not an explosion, at least a rather contemptuous smile:
Beaumaroy had earned no right to express opinions!
But express one he did, and with his habitual air of candor. "I believe
it's destroyed every, scruple I ever had!"
"Mr. Beaumaroy!" exclaimed his hostess, scandalized; while the two
girls, Cynthia and Gertie, laughed.
"I mean it. Can you see human life treated as dirt, absolutely as cheap
as dirt, for three years, and come out thinking it worth anything? Can
you fight for your own hand, right or wrong? Oh, yes, right or wrong, in
the end, and it's no good blinking it. Can you do that for three years in
war, and then hesitate to fight for your own hand, right or wrong, in
peace? Who really cares for right or wrong, anyhow?"
A pause ensued--rather an uncomfortable pause.
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