slits of his torn shirt, thought it a shame.

Winifred felt it was only another weapon of his against her.

'You have other shirts--why do you wear that old one that is all torn,
Egbert?' she said.

'I may as well wear it out,' he said subtly.

He knew she would not offer to mend it for him. She _could_ not. And no,
she would not. Had she not her own gods to honour? And could she betray
them, submitting to his Baal and Ashtaroth? And it was terrible to her,
his unsheathed presence, that seemed to annul her and her faith, like
another revelation. Like a gleaming idol evoked against her, a vivid
life-idol that might triumph.

He came and he went--and she persisted. And then the great war broke out.
He was a man who could not go to the dogs. He could not dissipate
himself. He was pure-bred in his Englishness, and even when he would have
killed to be vicious, he could not.

So when the war broke out his whole instinct was against it: against war.
He had not the faintest desire to overcome any foreigners or to help in
their death. He had no conception of Imperial England, and Rule Britannia
was just a joke to him. He was a pure-blooded Englishman, perfect in his
race, and when he was truly himself he could no more have been aggressive
on the score of his Englishness than a rose can be aggressive on the
score of its rosiness.

No, he had no desire to defy Germany and to exalt England. The