"So you did," said Doggie. "I remember." He smiled. "Your description made me laugh. Oliver's a major now, isn't he?" "Yes. And just before he got his majority they gave him the Military Cross." "He must be an awful swell," said Doggie. She replied with some heat. "He hasn't changed the least little bit in the world." Doggie shook his head. "No one can go through it, really go through it, and come back the same." "You don't insinuate that Oliver hasn't really gone through it?" "Of course not, Peggy dear. They don't throw M.C.'s about like Iron Crosses. In order to get it Oliver must have looked into the jaws of hell. They all do. But no man is the same afterwards. Oliver has what the French call _panache_----" "What's _panache_?" "The real heroic swagger--something spiritual about it. Oliver's not going to let you notice the change in him." "We went to the Alhambra, and he laughed as if such a thing as war had never been heard of." "Naturally," said Doggie. "All that's part of the _panache_." "You're talking through your hat, Marmaduke," she exclaimed with some irritation. "Oliver's a straight, clean, English soldier." "I've been doing my best to tell you so," said Doggie. "But you seem to be criticizing him because he's concealing something behind what you call his _panache_." "Not criticizing, dear. Only stating. I think I'm more Oliverian than you." "I'm not Oliverian," cried Peggy, with burning cheeks. "And I don't see why we should discuss him like this. All I said was that Oliver, who has made himself a distinguished man and will be even more distinguished, and, at any rate, knows what he's talking about, doesn't worry his head with social reconstruction and all that sort of rot. I've come here to talk about you, not about Oliver. Let us leave him out of the question." "Willingly," said Doggie. "I never had any reason to love Oliver; but I must do him justice. I only wanted to show you that he must be a bigger man than you imagine." "I'm glad to hear you say so," cried Peggy, with a flash of the eyes. "I hope it's true." "The war's such a whacking big thing, you see," he said with a conciliatory smile. "No one can prophesy exactly what's going to come out of it. But the whole of human society ... the world, the whole of civilization, is being stirred up like a Christmas pudding. The war's bound to change the trend of all human thought. There must be an entire rearrangement of social values." "I'm sorry; but I don't see it," said Peggy. Doggie again wrinkled his brow and looked at her, and she returned his glance stonily. "You think I'm mulish." She had interpreted Doggie's thought, but he raised a hand in protest. "No, no." "Yes, yes. Every man looks at a woman like that when he thinks her a mule or an idiot. We get to learn it in our cradles. But in spite of your superior wisdom, I know I'm right. After the war there won't be a bit of change, really. A duke will be a duke, and a costermonger a costermonger."