The deterrent was, the giving himself over into the power of other men, and into the power of the mob-spirit of a democratic army. Should he give himself over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something which he _knew_ was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit himself into the power of an inferior control? Should he? Should he betray himself? He was going to put himself into the power of his inferiors, and he knew it. He was going to subjugate himself. He was going to be ordered about by petty _canaille_ of non-commissioned officers—and even commissioned officers. He who was born and bred free. Should he do it? He went to his wife, to speak to her. “Shall I join up, Winifred?” She was silent. Her instinct also was dead against it. And yet a certain profound resentment made her answer: “You have three children dependent on you. I don’t know whether you have thought of that.” It was still only the third month of the war, and the old pre-war ideas were still alive. “Of course. But it won’t make much difference to them. I shall be earning a shilling a day, at least.” “You’d better speak to father, I think,” she replied heavily. Egbert went to his father-in-law. The elderly man’s heart was full of resentment. “I should say,” he said rather sourly, “it is the best thing you could do.” Egbert went and joined up immediately, as a private soldier. He was drafted into the light artillery. Winifred now had a new duty towards him: the duty of a wife towards a husband who is himself performing his duty towards the world. She loved him still. She would always love him, as far as earthly love went. But it was duty she now lived by. When he came back to her in khaki, a soldier, she submitted to him as a wife. It was her duty. But to his passion she could never again fully submit. Something prevented her, for ever: even her own deepest choice. He went back again to camp. It did not suit him to be a modern soldier. In the thick, gritty, hideous khaki his subtle physique was extinguished as if he had been killed. In the ugly intimacy of the camp his thoroughbred sensibilities were just degraded. But he had chosen, so he accepted. An ugly little look came on to his face, of a man who has accepted his own degradation. In the early spring Winifred went down to Crockham to be there when primroses were out, and the tassels hanging on the hazel-bushes. She felt something like a reconciliation towards Egbert, now he was a prisoner in camp most of his days. Joyce was wild with delight at seeing the garden and the common again, after the eight or nine months of London and misery. She was still lame. She still had the irons up her leg. But she lurched about with a wild, crippled agility.