“May I ask why not, sir?” said Beaumaroy respectfully.

“Because I believed in God.  I knew that we were right, and I knew that we should win.”

“Are we in theology now, or still in biology?” asked Irechester, rather acidly.

“You’re getting out of my ’depth anyhow,” smiled Mrs. Naylor.  “And I’m sure the girls must be bewildered.”

“Mamma, I’ve done biology!”

“And many people think they’ve done theology!” chuckled Naylor.  “Done it completely!”

“I’ve raised a pretty argument!” said Beaumaroy, smiling.  “I’m sorry!  I only meant to answer your question about the effect the whole thing has had on myself.”

“Even your answer to that was pretty startling, Mr. Beaumaroy,” said Doctor Mary, smiling too.  “You gave us to understand that it had obliterated for you all distinctions of right and wrong, didn’t you?”

“Did I go as far as that?” he laughed.  “Then I’m open to the remark that they can’t have been very strong at first.”

“Now don’t destroy the general interest of your thesis,” Naylor implored.  “It’s quite likely that yours is a case as common as Alec’s, or even commoner.  ‘A brutal and licentious soldiery,’ isn’t that a classic phrase in our histories?  All the same, I fancy Mr. Beaumaroy does himself less than justice.”  He laughed.  “We shall be able to judge of that when we know him better.”

“At all events, Miss Gertie, look out that I don’t fake the score at tennis!” said Beaumaroy.

“A man might be capable of murder, but not capable of that,” said Alec.

“A truly British sentiment!” cried his father.  “Tom, we have got back to the national ideals.”

The discussion ended in laughter, and the talk turned to lighter matters; but, as Mary Arkroyd drove Cynthia home across the heath, her thoughts returned to it.  The two men, the two soldiers, seemed to have given an authentic account of what their experience had done to them.  Both, as she saw the case, had been moved to pity, horror, and indignation that such things should be done, or should have to be done, in the world.  After that point came the divergence.  The higher nature had been raised, the lower debased; Alec Naylor’s sympathies had been sharpened and sensitized; Beaumaroy’s blunted.  Where the one had found ideals and incentives, the other found despair—­a despair that issued in excuses and denied high standards.  And the finer mind belonged to the finer soldier; that she knew, for Gertie had told her General Punnit’s story, and, however much she might discount it as the tale of an elderly martinet, yet it stood for something, for something that could never be attributed to Alec Naylor.