"Have mine, too," but he shook his head in answering, "I've no business
to think so, unless I act so, too."

Her heart stopped a beat before it pulsed on with leaps that she felt in
her neck. She had noticed that strange thing in men: they seemed to feel
bound to do what they believed, and not think a thing was finished when
they said it, as girls did. She knew what was in his mind, but she
pretended not, and she said, "Oh, I am not sure," and then faltered.

He went on as if to himself, without apparently heeding her: "There's
only one way of proving one's faith in a thing like this."

She could not say that she understood, but she did understand.

He went on again. "If I believed--if I felt as you do about this
war--Do you wish me to feel as you do?"

Now she was really not sure; so she said: "George, I don't know what you
mean."

He seemed to muse away from her as before.

"There is a sort of fascination in it. I suppose that at the bottom of
his heart every man would like at times to have his courage tested, to
see how he would act."

"How can you talk in that ghastly way?"

"It _is_ rather morbid. Still, that's what it comes to, unless you're
swept away by ambition or driven by conviction. I haven't the conviction