He brought out the statement so emphatically that I was moved to ask: "What shall we see?" "What Mrs. Harrowby and I have been talking about, the end of all this rot as to the war having created a new world." "That’s putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it?" I asked, maliciously. "The war didn’t create the new world; the new world created the war." Vio’s exquisite eyebrows went up a shade. "Does that mean anything?" "Only that the volcano creates the explosion; not the explosion the volcano. Given all the repressions and suppressions and injustices, the eruption had to come." "The eruption had to come," the colonel declared, hotly, "because the Germans planned it." "Oh, that was only a detail." "You might call the whole war only a detail—" "I do." "I don’t get you," he said, stiffly, leaning forward to place an empty cup on the table in front of Vio. In her I read something surprised that didn’t, however, disapprove of me. Thus encouraged, I went on. If I hadn’t thought these things out in the monotonous, unoccupied hours at Creed & Creed’s, my stunned brain would not have been master of them now. "I only meant that the war was but one of the forces, one of the innumerable forces, which the new world in the making—it isn’t made yet by any means—has put into operation. If a house collapses it shatters all the windows; but you can’t say that the shattering of the windows made the house collapse." I could see by his stare he was literally minded. "But what—what house is collapsing?" "The house all round us, the house of this particular form of civilization. It’s sliding down. It’s been sliding down for years. You might say that it began to slide down as soon as it was put up, because it was wrongly constructed. A building full of flaws begins to settle before they get the roof on, and though it may stand for years the ultimate crash is only a question of time. War came as soon as our building began to split; the building didn’t begin to split because the war came. It was splitting anyhow." "That seems to me—" he sought for a sufficiently condemnatory word—"that seems to me sheer socialism." "Oh, I don’t think it is. The Socialists wouldn’t say so. It isn’t anything in particular. It’s just—just fact." "Only?" Vio smiled, with her delicate, penetrating sarcasm. "Only," I echoed. "But as we belong to a world that doesn’t like fact it isn’t of much importance." Bewilderment brought a pained expression to the handsome, rather stupid, countenance. "What the—what on earth do you mean by that?" "Only that we’ve a genius for dodging issues and shutting our eyes to what’s straight before us." "Do you mean the ruin straight before us?" "Not necessarily, Vio. The collapse of this particular form of civilization wouldn’t mean ruin, because we’d get a better form. I suppose it’s coming into existence now."