For Cissie, at any rate, had not lost touch with the essential issues of the war. She was as clear as ever that German militarism and the German attack on Belgium and France was the primary subject of the war. And she dismissed all secondary issues. She continued to demand why America did not fight. "We fight for Belgium. Won't you fight for the Dutch and Norwegian ships? Won't you even fight for your own ships that the Germans are sinking?" Mr. Direck attempted explanations that were ill received. "You were ready enough to fight the Spaniards when they blew up the _Maine_. But the Germans can sink the _Lusitania_! That's--as you say--a different proposition." His mind was shot by an extraordinary suspicion that she thought the _Lusitania_ an American vessel. But Mr. Direck was learning his Cissie, and he did not dare to challenge her on this score. "You haven't got hold of the American proposition," he said. "We're thinking beyond wars." "That's what we have been trying to do," said Cissie. "Do you think we came into it for the fun of the thing?" "Haven't I shown in a hundred ways that I sympathise?" "Oh--sympathy!..." He fared little better at Mr. Britling's hands. Mr. Britling talked darkly, but pointed all the time only too plainly at America. "There's two sorts of liberalism," said Mr. Britling, "that pretend to be the same thing; there's the liberalism of great aims and the liberalism of defective moral energy...." Section 18 It was not until Teddy had been missing for three weeks that Hugh wrote about him. The two Essex battalions on the Flanders front were apparently wide apart, and it was only from home that Hugh learnt what had happened. "You can't imagine how things narrow down when one is close up against them. One does not know what is happening even within a few miles of us, until we get the newspapers. Then, with a little reading between the lines and some bold guessing, we fit our little bit of experience with a general shape. Of course I've wondered at times about Teddy. But oddly enough I've never thought of him very much as being out here. It's queer, I know, but I haven't. I can't imagine why.... "I don't know about 'missing.' We've had nothing going on here that has led to any missing. All our men have been accounted for. But every few miles along the front conditions alter. His lot may have been closer up to the enemy, and there may have been a rush and a fight for a bit of trench either way. In some parts the German trenches are not thirty yards away, and there is mining, bomb throwing, and perpetual creeping up and give and take. Here we've been getting a bit forward. But I'll tell you about that presently. And, anyhow, I don't understand about 'missing.' There's very few prisoners taken now. But don't tell Letty that. I try to imagine old Teddy in it....