"We are red-blooded enough, we Americans, but I think we hate killing the other man rather more than we fear being killed. It's sickening--bayonet practice. Killing at long range is different. The children of my generation were trained to tender-heartedness. We looked after the birds and rescued kittens, and were told that wars were impossible--long wars. But war is not impossible, and it has come upon us, and we are finding that men must be brave not merely in the face of losing their own lives, but in the face of taking the lives of--others. I sometimes wonder what it must have seemed to those Germans who went first into Belgium. Some of them must have been kind--some of them must have asked to be shot rather than be set at the work of butchery. "I sometimes think," he pursued, "that if we could give moving pictures of the war just as it is--in all its horror and hideousness--show the pictures in every little town in every country in the world, that war would stop at once. If the Germans could see themselves in those towns in Belgium--if the world could see them. If we could see men mowed down--wounded, close up, as our soldiers see them. If our people should be forced to look at those pictures, as the people of war-ridden countries have been forced to gaze upon realities, money would be provided and men provided in such amounts and numbers that those who began the war would be forced to end it on the terms the world would set for them. "The fact that men are going into this war in spite of their aversion to killing shows the stuff of which they are made. It is like drowning kittens," he smiled a little. "It has to be done or the world would be overrun by cats." Teddy, wide-eyed, was listening. "Do people drown kittens?" he asked. "Oh, I didn't think they would." It was a sad commentary on the conditions of war that he was more heavily oppressed by the thought of drowned little cats than by the murder of men. "My dear fellow," Derry said, "we won't talk about such things. I must beg your pardon for mentioning it." The talk flowed on then in lighter vein. "Ralph Witherspoon is in town," Jean vouchsafed. "He had a bad fall and was sent home to get over it. Mrs. Witherspoon has asked me there to dine. I shall take you with me." "I didn't know that people were dining out in these times." "Mrs. Witherspoon prides herself on her conservation menus. She says that she serves war things, that she gives us nothing to eat that the men need, and she likes her friends about her." "We shall miss Drusilla," Derry said. "I've been worried about her since the Huns recaptured those towns in France." "Daddy wrote that she is not far from his hospital, doing splendid work, and that the men adore her." "They would," said Derry. "She is a great-hearted creature. I can fancy her singing to them over there. You know what a wonder she was at that sort of thing--"