Derry, looking at his watch, was amazed to find that the evening was
yet early. He had lived emotionally through a much longer period than
that marked by the clocks.

He had no engagements. He had found himself of late shrinking a little
from his kind. The clubs and the hotels were crowded with officers.
Private houses, hung with service flags, paid homage to men in uniform.
He was aware that he was, perhaps, unduly sensitive, but it was not
pleasant to meet the inquiring glance, the guarded question. He was
welcomed outwardly as of old. But, then, he had a great deal of money.
People did not like to offend his father's son. But if he had not been
his father's son? What then?

He dined alone and in state in the great dining room. The portraits of
his ancestors looked down on him. There was his mother's grandfather,
who had the same fair hair and strongly marked brows. He had been an
officer in the English army, and wore the picturesque uniform of the
period. There were other men in uniform--ancestors--.

But of what earthly use was an ancestor in uniform to the present
situation? It would have been better to have inherited Quaker blood.
Derry smiled whimsically as he thought how different he might have felt
if there had been benignant men in gray with broad-brimmed hats,
staring down.

But to grant a man an inheritance of fighting blood, and then deny him
the opportunity to exercise his birthright, was a sort of grim joke
which he could not appreciate.

For dessert a great dish of fruit was set before him. He chose a peach!