"Jeffery, I don't want to understand, and I don't want any grace, and I think you're horrid and unsympathetic." She tapped him admonishingly on the arm, laughing lightly. But the gloom was still in her dark-gray eyes. "But, after all, you are right. We _are_ in for it, just as you have been.... God grant there are women more Spartan than I." Latham grimaced and was raising a deprecating hand when she caught it impulsively. "Please let's talk about something else." "Very well." He smiled mockingly and lowered his voice. "Your friend at your right there--curious beggar, don't you think?" Evelyn glanced at Simec, turning again to Latham. "He gives me the creeps," she confessed. "It seems absurd, but he does." "Really!" The Englishman stared at the man a moment. "Do you know," he resumed, "he does seem a bit uncanny. Where'd Nick pick him up?" "It was Jerry Dane," she replied. "He's done some tremendous things on the other side. Jerry met him in Washington the other day and seems to regard him as a find. He has no business sense and has given away practically everything. Now we are going to capitalize him; I believe that's the word. I never saw him before tonight"--her voice sank to a whisper--"and, do you know, I hope I never shall again." She shrugged. "Listen to him." Several of the guests were already doing that. His toneless voice rose and fell monotonously, and he appeared so detached from what he was saying that as Evelyn gazed at him she seemed to find difficulty in relating words that were said to the speaker; only the slight movement of the lips and an occasional formless gesture made the association definite. "Doctor Allison," he was saying, "has missed the distinction between _hostia honoraria_ and _hostia piacularis_. In the former case the deity accepts the gift of a life; in the latter he demands it." "What in the world are you all talking about now?" asked Evelyn plaintively. "Not war--?" "Sacrifice, Mrs. Colcord." Simec inclined his head slightly in her direction. "I was saying," explained Doctor Allison, "that we do well if we send our young men to battle in the spirit of privileged sacrifice, as--as something that is our--our--yes--our proud privilege, as I say, to do." Simec shook his head in thoughtful negation. "That is sentiment, excellent sentiment; unfortunately, it doesn't stand assay. Reaction comes. We do better if we make our gift of blood as a matter of unalterable necessity. We make too much of it all, in any event. The vast evil of extended peace is the attachment of too great value to luxuries and to human life--trite, but true. We know, of course, that the world has progressed chiefly over the dead bodies of men and, yes, women and children."