Herman Cyril McNeile

“ Vane smiled at her eager, glowing face so close to his own. "Do you suppose that we and others like us will have any say in the matter?"
She beat her hands together. "Derek, I hate you when you talk like that. You've got it in you to do big things--I feel it. You mustn't drift like you did before the war. You've got to fight, and others like you have got to fight, for everything that makes life worth living in our glorious, wonderful England." ”

“ You see, Derek, this war has given a different value to things. . . . Whether one likes it or not, it's made one more serious. It hasn't destroyed our capacity for pleasure, but it's altered the things we take pleasure in. My idea of a good time, after it's over, will never be the same as it was before."
Vane nodded his head thoughtfully. "I'm not certain, dear, that that's anything to worry about."
"Of course it isn't--I know that. But don't you see, Derek, where that leads us to? One can't afford to fool with things once they have become serious. ”

“ For if, at the price of team work and playing for the side, we can only buy two or three more years of individualism--at an age when the value of individualism is, at best, a doubtful blessing and, at worst, sheer blatant selfishness--we shall indeed have messed things up. The cranks will be delighted; but the Empire will gnash its teeth.
And now after nearly four years in the fiercest forcing house of character Derek Vane found himself trying to take an inventory of his own stock. ”

“ It is one thing to drug oneself in the waters of Lethe for a fortnight of one's own free will: it is altogether different to be drugged by others for good. And dimly he felt that either he or they would have to go under. Two totally incompatible people cannot sit next one another at dinner for long without letting some course get cold. ”

“ No man who has been through the rapids can find his feet in an hour's self-analysis. It takes time; and during that time much may happen, good or ill, according to the manner of the finder. The great unrest of the world is not felt by the men in the trenches. It seethes and boils outside, and only when a man comes back to so-called peace does he reach the whirlpool, which lies at the end of the rapids. Then, if he be of the type of Vane, is the time of danger. To lose one's sense of proportion in France is dangerous ”

“ Surely it was just a dream, and in a moment he would wake up and see the dreadful face of the mess waiter appearing down the dug-out steps. It is impossible to stumble over sand dunes and find Margarets in France. These things simply do not happen. One merely stumbles over the cobbles and sees the woman who keeps the estaminet round the corner washing the floor. ”

“ The system which has turned out hundreds of the Breed, and whose object is to mould all who pass through it on the model of the Breed, is not one to be dismissed lightly. Doubtless it has its faults; a little more latitude both in games and work might be allowed; originality encouraged more. But let us be very certain before we gaily pull the system to pieces that the one we erect in its place will stand the strain, and produce the one great result beside which everything else is as nothing. ”

“ And before we can find the path, we've got to find ourselves."
She turned towards him and for a long minute they looked into one another's eyes, while the gulls circled and screamed above them. Then slowly she bent forward and kissed him on the mouth. . . . "Go and find yourself, my dear," she whispered. "Go and make good. And when you have, if you still want me, I'll come to you."
* * * * * At the touch of her lips Vane closed his eyes. It seemed only a few seconds before he opened them again, but Margaret was gone. And then for a while he sat, idly throwing stones at the overturned bottle. ”