Polly, so many times hurt, so long ignored, remained quite still and indifferent. Only Angelica saw her thin fingers clench, and then open listlessly. She didn’t open her eyes or speak. "Where?" asked his mother. "You ask me?" he demanded. "I am a man. Pray, where should I go?" No one was able to answer, and he frowned again. "There’s only one destination possible," he said; "one spot on earth that draws toward it all of us who are men--a place of blood and destruction, of utter loneliness and frightful agony, where we rush to embrace that most maddening and most tender of mistresses----” "Oh, Vincent!" cried Mrs. Russell, distressed. "Don’t talk that way before Polly!" He threw back his head and laughed. "A mistress who breaks all hearts--of whom all loving souls are mad with jealousy--a mistress to whom no man is unfaithful--beautiful Death!" he cried. His mother gave a sort of shriek. "Vincent! You’re not going to kill yourself?" "No!" he cried. "No! To kill my brother!" "_Kill Eddie?_" "Don’t be such a damned fool!" he said, irritably, annoyed that she had misunderstood and cheapened his climax. "I’m going to the war." Until that moment they had, to tell the truth, taken very little notice of this war. It had been going on for some weeks, with great head-lines in the papers, but in their isolated group it had very little significance. Their routine was in no way interrupted. Eddie worried over it, but then he worried over everything. He said it was disastrous for the market. However, they were quite sure that he would bring home money for them, if not in one way, then in another, and they weren’t really disturbed. And now suddenly the war and Vincent came bursting in upon them with violence. CHAPTER ELEVEN I Vincent, of course, had to go out of the room at once after that declaration, leaving the three women astounded. Mrs. Russell was the first to bestir herself. Perhaps because she was conscious that her emotions were so feeble, she always strained to emphasize, to exaggerate them. She at once affected a great excitement. She began rushing about, under the pretense of "getting Vincent’s room ready," and telling the servants that Mr. Vincent was home. "And he’s going to the war, Annie!" she cried. "Isn’t that _dreadful_?" Polly took no part in this movement. She went back into her own room and sat down before her dressing-table. "I’ll do my own hair, Angelica," she said, with a new frigidity in her manner that surprised her companion. "All right!" Angelica answered, with a trace of sulkiness. "You can go if you like," Polly went on. "I won’t need you any more to-night. I think, Angelica, you’d better have your dinner in your room. Mr. Geraldine might not like a stranger at the table the first evening he’s home." "All right!" said Angelica again, turning obediently to the door. But she did not attempt to conceal a most provoking smile--to show Polly that she knew the cause of all this.