“Nothing more than any man has to face when he’s been in the thick of things and returns to a two-by-four existence. Can you go into the store to listen to women haggle over prices and men fuss about neckties, when all of you tingles with what you’ve seen and helped to do? It is just that you’ve grown beyond your home town. Yet the heart-part of you wants to come back to it and stay loyal and content ... maybe that’s not clear—it’s such a queer thing. We beggars moon about homesickness and sit about campfires and almost crucify ourselves with longing to be home and our letters promise you it will be, ‘Home, Hoboken or hell’ by this time or that.... You’d think we’d rush home and remain one glad grin! But we don’t. Part of us does—the heart-part of us that demands admiring relatives—the very dearest wife and child in the world,” he reached out to touch her arm as he almost strode by her, “but there is another part of us—whether wounded or not, that part is there—the primitive part that has to be roused in order to go over the top,—it can’t demobilize by an officer’s command, it has to die down—slowly—just wear away, a fretting, gnawing longing to go shoot up the town, wallow in mud as you hike, hike, hike after some one—catch the some one—maim him ... maybe kill him,” he was talking more to himself, “to have the boom-boom of guns waken you and put you to sleep, see slaughter about you and chaos and every universal law turned inside out and yourself in the center of it ... and that part will have to be conquered by every true soldier. And who is going to help him? He’ll love home folks the same and all the civilized comforts and fun-making—but sometimes that other part of him will battle against being chained back into silence. It’s the same as the call of the East or the mountaineer’s nostalgia when he has to live in flat country, a state of mind, Lorraine; don’t be frightened, I shouldn’t have bothered you with it—” They had reached their gate and Dan flung it open with a clatter. “Let’s sit out on the steps for awhile, will you?” he urged. “Four walls stifle me. If I was sure of my nerve, I’d run the car until morning through dark roads—fast as the wind—” He gave a jangling laugh as he settled himself on the steps. “Poor Dan,” Lorraine sobbed, trying to gather all of him in her arms. “Poor little Lorraine, you can’t understand. A fine mess I’ve been for you anyhow, first trying not to love you, not understanding nor appreciating you; then when Boy came and I knew your worth and my love for you and what a splendid pal Thurley was, but just a pal, and then the war, and now—”