"Why should you torture yourself with that? You have given her something that no one else can ever give--the wonder and rapture of first love. And the heroes of a war like this will be in a very special manner set apart! 'A glorious company, the flower of men, to serve as models for the mighty world!'" She laid her hand on his shoulder. "You must think now only of love and life and of coming back to Jean." He reached up his hand and caught hers in a warm clasp. "Do you know you are the nearest, thing to a mother that I've known since I lost mine?" He spoke, too, rather awkwardly, of the feeling about--getting ready. "I have always thought that if I tried to live straight--I've thought, too, that it wouldn't come until I was old--that I should have plenty of time--and that by then, I should be more--spiritual." "You will never be more spiritual than you are at this moment. Youth is nearer Heaven than age. I have always thought that. As we grow old--we are stricken by--fear--of poverty, of disease--of death. It is youth which has faith and hope." Before he left her, he gave her a sacred charge. "If anything happens, I know what you'll be to--Jean--and I can't tell you what a help you've been this morning." She was thrilled by that. And after he left her she thought much about him. Of what it would have meant to her to have a son like that. Women had said to her, "You should be glad that you have no boy to send--." But she was not glad. Were they mad, these mothers, to want to hold their boys back? Had the days of peace held no dangers that they should be so afraid for them now? For peace had dangers--men and women had been worshipping false gods. They had set up a Golden Calf and had bowed before it--and their children, lured by luxury, emasculated by ease of living, had wanted more ease, more luxury, more time in which to--play! And now life had become suddenly a vivid Crusade, with everybody marching in one direction, and the young men were manly in the old ways of strength and heroism, and the young women were womanly in the old way of sending their lovers forth, and in a new way, when, like Drusilla, they went forth themselves to the front line of battle. To have children in these days, meant to have something to give. One need not stand before suffering humanity empty-handed! War was a monstrous thing, a murderous thing--but surely this war was a righteous one--a fire which would cleanse the world. Men and women, because of it, were finding in themselves something which could suffer for others, something in themselves which could sacrifice, something which went beyond body and mind, something which reached up and touched their souls.