'Well,' he said at last, slowly, 'if it does, you might quite truly look at the whole thing as a mental case; a case of nervous breakdown. The war's playing the devil with your nerves--that's what it means. You do things and feel things and say things, I dare say, that you wouldn't have once, but that you can scarcely help now. You're only one of many, you know--one of thousands. The military hospitals are full of them; men who come through plucky and grinning but with their nerves shattered to bits. There are the people, like Terry and plenty more, who come through mentally undamaged, their balance not apparently upset, and the people like John (at least I rather guessed so when I saw him) and thousands more, who--well, who don't.... War's such an insane, devilish thing; its hoofs go stamping over the world, trampling and breaking.... O Lord! I've seen so much of it; it meets one all over the place. It makes one simply sick. This affair of yours is nothing to some things I've come upon lately.... West says the same, you know. Of course, as a parson, he sees much more of people, in that way, than I do. He says lots of the quite nice, decent women he visits have taken to getting drunk at the pubs; partly they're better off than they were, of course, but it's mostly just nerves. You don't drink at pubs, do you?' 'Not come to it yet,' said Alix. 'Well, you're lucky. I consider you're jolly lucky, considering the state you've been in for some time, to have done nothing worse yet than to have told a man you've every right to care for that you care for him.' Alix was crying now, quietly. 'And I have done worse things, too.... I tried to get him back from Evie. I told her he didn't really care for her--that he had been just the same with me. Oh, I know he did care for me a little, of course, but--' she choked on a laugh, 'he didn't behave as he does with Evie, a bit....' 'Probably not,' Nicholas admitted. 'Well, there you are; I behaved like a cad about it. That's worse than drinking at pubs--much worse. It's even worse than telling him I cared.... What can I do about it, Nicky? Is that part of the war disease too?' 'Certainly,' said Nicholas promptly. 'Precisely the same thing, and bears out all I was saying. And, as you remark, much worse than drinking at pubs.... Sorry, but it does prove my case, you know. You don't do that sort of thing in peace time, at least, do you?' he added with impartial curiosity. 'I've forgotten about peace time.... No, I don't think I used to.... Suppose I shall have to tell Evie,' Alix added morosely. 'Though she doesn't care for him, a bit.... What a bore.... All right, Nicky; I'll try to look at myself as a mental case.... And what's left is that Basil has gone.... I love him, you know, extraordinarily. I--Oh, Nicky, I love him, I love him, I love him.' She passionately sobbed for a time. Nicholas stood silent, thinking, till she lay back exhausted and quiet.