She tried to be polite about the family banquet. But the food choked her. She had seen so many gaunt hands pleading upward for a crust of bread. She had seen so many shriveled lips guzzling over a bowl of soup. She had seen so many once beautiful soldiers who had nothing to eat anything with. Cicely apologized for being such a death's head at the feast, but she was ashamed of her people, ashamed of her country for keeping out of the war and fattening on it. All the motives of pacifism, of neutrality, of co-operation by financing and munitioning the war, were foul in her eyes. She knew only her side of the conflict, and she cared for no other. She found America craven and indifferent either to its own obligations or its own dangers. She accused the United States of basking in the protection of the British navy and the Allied armies. She felt that the immortal crime of the _Lusitania_ with its flotsam of dead women and children was more disgraceful to the nation that endured it than to the nation that committed it. She was very, very bitter, and Kedzie found her most depressing company, especially for a dinner-table. But she excited Jim Dyckman tremendously. He broke out into fierce diatribes against the Chinafying of the United States with its Lilliputian army guarding its gigantic interests. He began to toy with the idea of enlisting in the Canadian army or of joining the American aviators flying for France. “The national bird is an eagle,” he said, with unwonted poesy, “and the best place an American eagle can fly is over France.” When Kedzie protested: “But you've got a family to consider. Let the single men go,” Jim laughed louder and longer than he had laughed for weeks. Cicely smiled her first smile and squeezed Jim's hand. CHAPTER XI Kedzie went home early. It was depressing there, too. Now that she had a house of her own, she found an extraordinary isolation in it. Almost nobody called. When she lived under the Dyckman roof she was included in the cards left by all the callers; she was invited into the drawing-room to meet them; she was present at all the big and little dinners, and breakfasts and teas and suppers. People who wanted to be asked to more of the Dyckman meals and parties swapped meals and parties with them and included Kedzie in their invitations, since she was one of the family. She went about much in stately homes, and her name was celebrated in what the newspapers insist upon calling the “exclusive” circles. Kedzie laughed at the extraordinary inclusiveness of their High Exclusivenesses until she got her own home. And then she learned its bitter meaning. It was not that Mrs. Dyckman meant to freeze her out. She urged her to “come in any time.” But, as Kedzie told Jim, “an invitation to come any time is an invitation to stay away all the time.” Kedzie's pride kept her aloof. She made it so hard to get her to come that Mrs. Dyckman sincerely said to Cicely: