leave their firesides and our children their schools to eke out a
miserable existence." And this for the militia: "The lowest aim of life
is to be a soldier! The `good' soldier never tries to distinguish right
from wrong, he never thinks, he never reasons, he only obeys--"

"But," Janet was tempted to say, "your syndicalism declares that none of
us should think or reason. We should only feel." She was beginning to
detect Rolfe's inconsistencies, yet she refrained from interrupting the
inspirational flow.

"The soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine." Rolfe
was fond of adjectives. "All that is human in him, all that is divine has
been sworn away when he took the enlistment oath. No man can fall lower
than a soldier. It is a depth beyond which we cannot go."

"All that is human, all that is divine," wrote Janet, and thrilled a
little at the words. Why was it that mere words, and their arrangement in
certain sequences, gave one a delicious, creepy feeling up and down the
spine? Her attitude toward him had become more and more critical, she had
avoided him when she could, but when he was in this ecstatic mood she
responded, forgot his red lips, his contradictions, lost herself in a
medium she did not comprehend. Perhaps it was because, in his absorption
in the task, he forgot her, forgot himself. She, too, despised the
soldiers, fervently believed they had sold themselves to the oppressors
of mankind. And Rolfe, when in the throes of creation, had the manner of
speaking to the soldiers themselves, as though these were present in the
lane just below the window; as though he were on the tribune. At such
times he spoke with such rapidity that, quick though she was, she could
scarcely keep up with him. "Most of you, Soldiers, are workingmen!" he
cried. "Yesterday you were slaving in the mills yourselves. You will