"Yes, sir. I think we are."

"There's no answer to that, Jackson," he said. But a sense of
irritation stirred him as he went up the steps to the house door.
Jackson was a good man. Jackson and Klein, and who knew who would
be next?

"Oh, damn the war," he reflected rather wearily.




CHAPTER V

The winter which preceded the entrance of the United States into
the war was socially an extraordinary one. It was marked by an
almost feverish gayety, as though, having apparently determined to
pursue a policy dictated purely by self interest, the people wished
to forget their anomalous position. Like a woman who covers her
shame with a smile. The vast number of war orders from abroad had
brought prosperity into homes where it had long been absent. Mills
and factories took on new life. Labor was scarce and high.

It was a period of extravagance rather than pleasure. People played
that they might not think. Washington, convinced that the nation
would ultimately be involved, kept its secret well and continued to
preach a neutrality it could not enforce. War was to most of the
nation a great dramatic spectacle, presented to them at breakfast
and in the afternoon editions. It furnished unlimited conversation