G. B. Lancaster

“ He was glad that he, not Bohun, must answer to that call. He was glad that no man would doubt his courage because, let come what would come, he stayed hid in safety here. The grain would be winnowed out from the chaff now—someone had just said so. He would escape that blast, and Bohun was not afraid of it. Not afraid as he— Fiennes—was afraid. Bohun was laughing when he came back, and Fiennes loved him for it—loved him for the big muscles and the brutish black moustache and the deep chest-laughter and the eyes warm with a kind of terrible content. ”

“ Fiennes, you're talking like a coward and you're acting like a coward! Let's get out of this."
"Give me your word first about Miss de Cazelet."
"What have you to do with her? Do you want to marry her?"
"Marry her!" Fiennes flung himself forward, and the torrent of his words poured out close to Bohun's ear. "Are you brute enough to ask that? Can't you see that there'll never be any marrying for me? This—this business is only beginning. I'm going to get worse all the time. The doctors told me that. My life is done! ”

“ And because to Bohun the moment was supreme, he understood, even as he came to her, that it would pass void into the void. Through disrepute, danger, unsuccess, he had beaten out his way, bluffing, taking chances, bruising and being bruised, better than some men, worse than a good many, not given to the graces of renunciation and self-denial, impatient of mercy and tenderness as of weaknesses which crippled a man. ”

“ Fiennes was among them, hanging on his sticks, with patches of red on his thin face and a queer kind of desperate devil in his eyes. Bohun went over to him, and Fiennes' lips drew back a little from his teeth. He put a hot, shaking hand on Bohun's wrist.
"Just help me out—can't stand the crowd," he said, and Bohun got a strong arm about the shrunken body and bore him out into the corridor. That hot hand clung to his wrist still.
"Do you hear what they're saying?" whispered Fiennes. "We'll need every fit man—every fit man. Are you going to fight, Bohun? Are you?" ”

“ A cripple among the climbers of mountains!"
"C'est ça," said the little man, and shrugged. "The mountains have destroyed him, and he comes to defy the mountains. They are like that, les Anglais. Never have they the grace to accept defeat."
"Imbécile!" cried Madame. "It is Monsieur Bohun who destroyed him, and he returns to defy monsieur—or to destroy him, peut-être. Il en a l'air."
"Bah! Le Monsieur Bohun? He can well guard himself—and la petite mademoiselle aussi——" But Madame waved her fingers at him.
"Oh, la, la, la!" she said, in disgust, and went out to meet Fiennes. ”

“ Fiennes understood. Bohun, even in this moment, was saying with the others—
"What the deuce brings him back here? Hasn't the fellow the decency to know that he's down and under? He's no sport if he can't accept the fortune of war better than this."
Fiennes preferred this attitude in Bohun to a stammering pity and regret. He sat down with the comfortable consciousness that he had turned their intimate talk into awkward conversation, and that Nina de Cazelet winced every time she looked at him. ”

“ A dull light was smouldering in Bohun's eyes. He held himself stiff as iron, and his jaw was thrust out a little. Fiennes wondered how long he was going to suffer that detaining hand.
"Look here," said the Major, and his voice was unsteady, "we're into a bigger thing than private sins and sorrows now. Pity help us all! Come along and help me look after my girl, Bohun. Men and countries are both going into the melting-pot. It's only the way they'll come out that matters now, man." ”

“ He knew that they were asking what this derelict of manhood did here in a place reserved by Nature for the whole and strong, if ever place on earth was so reserved. He knew and he remembered that there was a glacier back in the Geschni Alp called after him. And then he saw the long mirrors of the lounge reflect a face sharpened and hollowed by suffering, and a body which dragged itself helplessly between two sticks, and he laughed to himself at the grim joke of it all. ”

“ In some inexplicable way this wiped the livid fury from Bohun's face. "For Heaven's sake, Fiennes—— But even that doesn't give you any right over me."
"Never mind right. Let's say power," suggested Fiennes.
A passing woman brushed Bohun's shoulder, and his quick apology and smile aroused Fiennes' admiration and made him the more bitter because of it.
"You have no power which an honourable man could use," said Bohun then. ”

“ He walked a few steps, and found that he was blundering over the shrine. A sharp corner somewhere caught his knee-cap, and he swore at it. Then he stopped stupidly and looked back at her. She did not speak again. The tragedy of her sex was guarding her now. Intensely woman, she was helpless in the power of her womanhood. She could not speak again. Bohun understood that, looking at her. ”

“ Go and get packed up," he said, with a hearty shake of Bohun's elbow. And then he went hurriedly away without a second look.
Fiennes saw the two women and the two men go up the stair together. And quite suddenly the hot tears stung his eyes. War the avenger, War the healer, War which breaks down the needless and builds up the imperishable—the storm of its great wings seemed all about him in the dim corridor, pitiless, glorious, winnowing out—what had they said?—winnowing out the chaff from the good grain of the soul.
Copyright, 1915, by G. B. Lancaster, in the United States of America. ”

“ How'd you have liked to be put out of it all at twenty-six? I can't marry. I suppose I'll love—most men go through that some time or other—but I can't know what it means to have a girl waiting for me as that girl is waiting for you now. ”