HILDA.  Wallace has volunteered. (He looks at her keenly.) He has lied about his age.  He wants us to let him go.

WHITE.  Volunteered?

HILDA.  Yes; he leaves to-night.

WHITE (after a pause).  And what have you told him?

HILDA.  That he must go.

WHITE.  You can say that?

HILDA.  It is the way he sees it.

WHITE (going to her sympathetically).  Hilda.

HILDA (looking up at him tenderly).  O Will, do you remember when he was born? (He soothes her.) And all we nursed him through afterwards; and all we taught him; all we tried to show him about war. (With a shrug of her shoulders) None of it has mattered.

WHITE.  War is stronger than all that.

HILDA.  So we mustn’t blame him.  You won’t blame him?

WHITE.  He fears I will?

HILDA.  He has always feared you a little, though he loves you deeply.  You mustn’t oppose him, dear.  You won’t?

WHITE (wearily).  Is there any use opposing anybody or anything these days?

HILDA.  We must wait till the storm passes.

WHITE.  That’s never been my way.

HILDA.  No.  You’ve fought all your life.  But now we must sit silent together and wait; wait for our boy to come back.  Will, think of it; we are going to have a boy “over there,” too.

WHITE.  Hilda, hasn’t it ever struck you that we may have been all wrong? (She looks at him, as she holds his hand.) What could these frail hands do?  How could we poor little King Canutes halt this tide that has swept over the world?  Isn’t it better, after all, that men should fight themselves out; bring such desolation upon themselves that they will be forced to see the futility of war?  May it not become so terrible that men—­the workers, I mean—­will throw down their worn-out weapons of their own accord?  Won’t permanent peace come through bitter experience rather than talk—­talk—­talk?

HILDA (touching the torn pages of his speech and smiling).  Here is your answer to your own question.

WHITE.  Oh, that was all theory.  We’re in now.  You say yourself we can’t oppose it.  Isn’t it better if we try to direct the current to our own ends rather than sink by trying to swim against it?

HILDA.  Oh, yes; it would be easier for one who could compromise.

WHITE.  But haven’t we radicals been too intolerant of compromise?

HILDA.  That has been your strength.  And it is your strength I’m relying on now that Wallace—­Shall I call him?

WHITE (significantly).  No; wait.

HILDA (apprehensive at his turn).  Oh, yes.  Before he came you said there was something—­(The phone rings.  They both look at it.) That’s for you.

WHITE (not moving).  Yes.

HILDA hardly believing his attititde).  Is—­is it private?