"It's a queer pass for me to come to," he finished whimsically. "Wouldn't it be? Me to go and fight for things and people that I don't believe in? Why should a man find his rational conclusions upset by an emotion he can't define? I stood looking at the Gulf the other day, and I thought how easy it would be for those German cruisers that are reported off the West Coast to start slinging shells in here. And the picture of 'em potting at us made me sort of swell up and get all hot and angry inside. It's illogical and absurd for me to feel that way about what's going on in Europe. And still--there it is. Some of these days I'll find myself in the army headed overseas. And I'll be wondering how in hell I got there. How, I ask you, can a man who thinks as I do, _feel_ the way I do, about this?" But that was as difficult of answer as Andy's other question,--and Rod was too deeply involved in a personal problem of his own, a conflict between two powerful sets of feelings, to consider Andy's psychological _impasse_. They had another drink and went about their separate affairs. For another forty-eight hours Rod stirred uneasily about the town. He met his father by chance, talked with him briefly. He spent a little time each day in one or the other of two clubs in which he held membership. He and Mary went once to dinner at the home of a classmate, married now and frankly unsettled by the war cloud. He met other young men he knew. He missed a great many others, but he knew where they were. He heard the one thing discussed in clubs, in hotels, on the streets. People lived the war in public and private. Rod wondered if they dreamed about it in their sleep, as he sometimes did. Between himself and Mary a singular constraint had arisen. It was as if some impalpable substance enfolded them, sealing their lips upon things they both felt and feared but could not embody in speech. Where the unspoken thought had scarcely needed words, so perfect an accord of mind had they attained, now each was locked in a separate chamber of his soul, brooding inscrutably, wordlessly even when they sat knee to knee by their room window or lay wide-eyed in the night, flesh touching flesh, mute in the face of an ache to speak and be understood. Rod came in one evening after dusk. Mary had begun to dress for dinner. She sat on the edge of their bed, hair down, a silver slipper hanging idly from one hand. She looked at Rod when he came in, a silent question, almost an appeal, and then her eyes dropped to the floor. "Dorothy is over from Victoria," she said tonelessly. "She telephoned half an hour ago. Charlie has been offered a commission. She's planning to go east with him and later across to London." Rod sat down beside her, put his arms about her. His fingers stroked her thick, soft hair. "I have to go," he said quietly. "I've hammered it out for myself. I can't keep out of it."