“Has a good many women in it.  But it’s so stupid, so wicked and wasteful, to fight over things that are rarely finally settled by fighting.  It’s bad business!” My hands twisted shiveringly in my lap.  “Do you suppose the time will ever come when man will see it’s the animal’s way of getting what he wants, of keeping others from getting what he’s got, of settling difficulties and defending points of view?  Do you think he’ll ever find a better way?”

“In a few thousand years—­yes,” Selwyn again smiled and, changing his position, stood with his back to the fire.  “When we have the same code for nations as for individuals, the same insistence that what’s wrong in and punishable for a man is wrong in and punishable for his country, or when we cease to think of ourselves as group people and remember we are but parts of a whole, we may cease to be fighting animals.  Not until then, perhaps.  Personally, I think war is a good thing every now and then.  That is, in the present state of our undevelopment.”

“So do I.”  David Guard’s shoulders made energetic movement.  “War brings out every evil passion of which man is possessed, but it has its redemptive side.  It clears away befogging sophistries, delivers from deadening indulgences and indifferences; enables us to see ourselves, our manner of life, our methods of government, our obligations and our injustices, in perspective that reveals what could, perhaps, be grasped in no other way.  It brings about readjustments and reaccountings, and puts into operation new forces of life, new conceptions of duty.  It’s a frightful way of making man get a firmer grip on certain essential realizations, of taking in more definitely the high purpose of his destiny, but at times there seems no other way.  I pray God we may keep out of this, but if it means a stand for human rights—­”

“We’ll all enlist!” The faces of the men before me were sober, and quick fear made my voice unsteady.  “War may have its redemptive side; it may at times be necessary for the preservation of honor and the maintenance of principle, but that’s because, I imagine, of our unpreparedness as human beings to—­to be the right sort of human beings.  When we are there’ll be no time to kill one another.  We’ll need it all to help each other.  I hate war as few hate it, perhaps, but should it come to us I’m as ready to join my army as you to join yours.”  I got up and took the hand David Guard was holding out to me.  “I wish you didn’t have to go.  Must you?”

“Must.  Got an engagement at nine-fifteen.  I’ll see you before the week is out about Clara Rudd.  Good night.”  He turned to Selwyn, shook hands, and was gone.

In the corner of the sofa I again sat down, and Selwyn, turning off the light in the lamp behind me, took a chair and drew it close to me.  Anxiety he made no effort to control was in his eyes.

“Well—­have you anything to tell me?”