There was a little pause. Clayton drew a long breath.

"That means war," he said finally.

"Hell turned over and stirred up with a pitch-fork, if we have any
backbone at all," agreed Dunbar. He turned to Graham. "You young
fellows'll be crazy about this."

"You bet we will," said Graham.

Clayton slipped an arm about the boy's shoulders. He could not speak for
a moment. All at once he saw what the news meant. He saw Graham going
into the horror across the sea. He saw vast lines of marching men,
boys like Graham, boys who had frolicked through their careless
days, whistled and played and slept sound of nights, now laden like
pack-animals and carrying the implements of death in their hands, going
forward to something too terrible to contemplate.

And a certain sure percentage of them would never come back.

His arm tightened about the boy. When he withdrew it Graham
straightened.

"If it's war, it's my war, father."

And Clayton replied, quietly: "It is your war, old man."

Dunbar turned his back and inspected Natalie's portrait. When he faced
about again Graham was lighting a cigaret, and Natalie herself was
entering the room. In her rose-colored satin she looked exotic,
beautiful, and Dunbar gave her a fleeting glance of admiration as he
bowed. She looked too young to have a boy going to war. Behind her he
suddenly saw other women, thousands of other women, living luxurious
lives, sheltered and pampered, and suddenly called on to face sacrifice
without any training for it.