"Come over here a moment," he stood up and drew her to him. "Come over here." With his arm round her shoulders he led her over to a great portrait in oils that hung against the wall, the portrait of a stern-faced soldier in the uniform of a forgotten century. To the girl the picture of her great-grandfather was not a thing of surpassing interest--she had seen it too often before. But she was a girl of understanding, and she realised that the soul of the man beside her was in the melting-pot; and, moreover, that she might make or mar the mould into which it must run. So in her wisdom she said nothing, and waited. "I want you to listen to me for a bit, Syb," he began after a while. "I'm not much of a fist at talking--especially on things I feel very deeply about. I can't track my people back like you can. The corresponding generation in my family to that old buster was a junior inkslinger in a small counting-house up North. And that junior inkslinger made good: you know what I'm worth to-day if the governor died." He started to pace restlessly up and down the hall, while the girl watched him quietly. "Then came this war and I went into it--not for any highfalutin motives, not because I longed to avenge Belgium--but simply because my pals were all soldiers or sailors, and it never occurred to me not to. In fact at first I was rather pleased with myself--I treated it as a joke more or less. The governor was inordinately proud of me; the mater had about twelve dozen photographs of me in uniform sent round the country to various bored and unwilling recipients; and lots of people combined to tell me what a damn fine fellow I was. Do you think he'd have thought so?" He stopped underneath the portrait and for a while gazed at the painted face with a smile. "That old blackguard up there--who lived every moment of his life--do you think he would have accounted that to me for credit? What would _he_ say if he knew that in a crisis like this there are men who cloak perfect sight behind blue glasses; that there are men who have joined home defence units though they are perfectly fit to fight anywhere? And what would he say, Sybil, if he knew that a man, even though he'd done something, was now resting on his oars--content?" "Go on, dear!" The girl's eyes were shining now. "I'm coming to the point This morning the old dad started on the line of various fellows he knew whose sons hadn't been out yet; and he didn't see why I should go a second time--before they went. The business instinct to a certain extent, I suppose--the point of view of a business man. But would _he_ understand that?" Again he nodded to the picture. "I think----" She began to speak, and then fell silent.