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“Well, son, what was it?” asked Mr. Carroll.

“You know, father,” Stacey replied.

The older man pushed back his chair impatiently, and his face took on an almost querulous expression that set small uncharacteristic wrinkles to interfering oddly with its firm, deeply traced lines.

“Yes, I suppose I know what it is,” he said, “but I don’t see why you should make me state it. You want to go to the war, and you have an answer ready to every objection I can make. Damn it all, Stacey! It isn’t our war! If it becomes so I’ll be the first to say: ‘Enlist!’ but it isn’t—not yet, anyway.”

“You know you think it ought to be, father,” replied the young man steadily. “I’ve heard you say so a score of times. Every one with any generosity whom we know thinks it ought to be. I only want to live up to that conviction. I believe it’s right against wrong, the—the—soul against the machine; and so do you, or you wouldn’t have given so generously to Belgium.”

His father did not seem to be listening. He was staring away over his son’s head almost dreamily. “I remember when I built a play-house for you and Julie back of the stable. You were six years old and tried to carry two-by-fours to me. You didn’t succeed.”