Unquestionably, the absorbing topic had gripped the imagination of all. It was sufficiently theoretical, so absolutely hypothetical, in fact, so utterly impossible, that Evelyn's alert intellect found pleasure in grappling with it. "I wonder--!" Her elbows were on the table, her chin upon her hands. "Of course, it's awfully easy to say; but I wonder how it would be if we really faced such a question. Just consider, Arnold,"--she was smiling at Bates--"the superhuman firing squad is outside the door; the superhuman agent stands at your side ready to push the button and end the war as the shots ring out. You picture it, of course, with your imagination. Well, sir, what do you say?" Bates grimaced, twisting the stem of his wine-glass in his fingers. "Well, one can say only what he _thinks_ he would do. It's so absurd that I can't visualize your picture--not even with my imagination. But it seems to me--it _seems_ that I would gladly make the sacrifice." Doctor Allison, who had been scowling at the ceiling, passing his fingers thoughtfully through his sparse gray hair, sighed deeply. "That's just it; how could one possibly tell? The mind adapts itself to situations, I suppose; in fact, of course it does. It's altogether difficult, sitting at this table with its food and color and light and excellent company, to place yourself in the position Nicholas has devised. It's simply flying from the very comfortable and congenial and normal present into a dark limbo that is deucedly uncomfortable, uncongenial, and abnormal. I can't go beyond what I've already said; I don't know whether I'd do it or not." "You'd like to, of course," suggested Mrs. Dane. "Oh, of course I'd _like_ to," was the reply. "The point I make is whether I could or not; I don't _know_." "Well"--the young woman paused--"I'm not going to put the question to my husband because I wouldn't let Jerry do it, even if he were willing." "Oh, come now, Bess!" grinned Dane. "Well, I wouldn't, and I imagine I'd have some rights in the matter." "Now we're getting back to Simec's _hostia honoraria_ and _hostia piacularis_," laughed Bates. "It is a new viewpoint," sighed Evelyn. "Curiously, I hadn't thought of _that_." She smiled across the table at her husband, but he was slouched in his chair, his eyes staring vacantly over her head. "Of course you'd all do it, every one," he said presently. "The trouble now is that you are attempting to visualize the tragic part of it and not considering the humanitarian side--the great good that would come of the sacrifice. When you look at it that way you would be willing to do it--and think it a mighty darn cheap exchange." "Well, perhaps so," grumbled Allison. "But I can't help thinking I'm glad I don't have to face the alternative." Evelyn turned swiftly toward Sybil Latham, under the impression that she had made some little exclamation or that she had checked one. But her face was hard and inscrutable.