It surprised him that Minnie’s feelings were so vehement. She was absolutely furious that there should be a war. All those men should have known better. She didn’t know or care what it was about; she declared it was shameful and wicked for so many people to be killed. She went so far as to weep over it. He knew Minnie well enough to guess at something personal in this fervour; an abstract interest was not possible for her. Sure enough, it was a personal matter. It concerned her adored brother. He had evidently been telling her that he wanted to enlist, for one morning Mr. Petersen heard them at it, taking it up again with incredible obstinacy and indirectness on both sides. “I won’t let you!” cried Minnie. “I won’t have it!” “Good God! What do you want to make of me? Can’t you _see_, even _you_, that it’s the only way to rehabilitate myself? My only chance. I shan’t lose it, no fear!” “Don’t you dare!” she cried hysterically. “I’ll die! It would kill me!” Mr. Petersen entered after Alec had gone out angrily, banging the door. “Minnie, my dear,” he said, mildly, “don’t you think you’re wrong to try to influence your brother in such a----” “Oh, do stop!” she interrupted rudely. “You don’t understand.” And suddenly grew angry with him. “I should think you could see he’s not fit for a military life. So thin and sensitive. How can you be so heartless.” Mr. Petersen remarked that if he weren’t fit for a military life, he wouldn’t be accepted, but Minnie said she knew all about _that_; they’d take anyone they could get hold of, even in a dying condition. This marked the end of her period of sweetness. With her characteristic scorn for doctor’s orders, she refused to stay in bed any longer. In a wrapper, thinner, pallid, and untidy, she pervaded the house, for the sole purpose of keeping her eye on Alec. She followed him about, scolding him, crying, tormenting him. He stopped arguing, he absolutely refused to answer her. He would sit, with a cigarette in his mouth, quite unmoved by her tirades. It was undoubtedly a unique opportunity for the poor fellow to “rehabilitate” himself, as he put it, and Mr. Petersen couldn’t understand why he hesitated. Surely no man owed so immoderate a duty to a sister. If he wanted to go, if he saw it as his duty to go, why in Heaven’s name, didn’t he go, and at once?