"Just phrases. Useful phrases that served their turn. Who is so naïve as to believe that now? Do you?" he asked without heat. Mary smiled. "No. But a great many people do. Or they say they do. They've gone about mouthing those catch phrases so long they repeat them as a sort of liturgic response whenever the war is mentioned. They respond to all questioning, all criticism, with that formula." "I daresay," Rod mused. "But nobody in the army has any such illusions. I haven't had much chance to observe personally, but I don't know any place where democracy is in good working order. We certainly put a crimp in German militarism, but our own militarists are in a very flourishing condition, especially in France. In fact, a lot of men, from battalion commanders down to ranks, are beginning to ask what we _did_ fight for. The few weeks I've been in civil life haven't enlightened me. After passing through that long trance of dirt, danger and drudgery, men do want to know. Some people, quite a lot, regard it as some sort of spectacular game at which our side won. They seem to be rather eager for the distribution of prizes. And there aren't any prizes. I don't think there will be. Nothing but bigger taxes, higher prices--a hell of a struggle to pay the bill--labor demanding to know why, after having fought a war and won it, they must come home and get to work and pay the bill. Oh, we won the war right enough, but it's a Pyrrhic victory. The significance of that long-drawn wrangle at Versailles doesn't seem obvious to many people." "People--people in the mass," Mary said scornfully, "are just sheep. One big sheep says 'Baa!' and all the lesser sheep chorus 'Baa!' defiantly or plaintively, as the case may be." Rod laughed. He got up from his chair. "Where's that club bag? Oh, I see it. That sheep thing reminds me. I heard Andy Hall use that simile once, and I came across the same observation in a book I bought on the train." He came back to his wife with a volume in his hand. "Have you seen this novel?" he asked. "If not you must read it. Some one who knows this country and loves it and understands it has been putting a lot of things very clearly and sympathetically in a book. Some of it is real enough to have happened, and some of the characters seem like people I know. There's truth and power in the thing. There's a man or two in it who feels about the war and political flapdoodle and tricky manipulation of affairs and a lot of current skulduggery, very much as a good many able men I know feel about it all. There is some corking good description, some fine characterization, and some almost brilliant writing. Part of the scene is laid on the B.C. coast. It's so vivid it made me homesick. Have you seen it?" He handed her the book. Mary opened it, let the leaves riffle through her fingers, turned back to the title page.