Elizabeths Campaign | Page 7

he said with emphasis; 'it's all the war. I'm told
to do things I don't want to do, which affect my personal freedom, and
other people's, because of a war I don't believe in, never asked for, and
don't approve of. Here's Levasseur now, a clever fellow, cleverer than
either you or me, Chicksands, and he's no more patriotic than I am. You
talk to him!'
'Thank you, I'm too busy,' said Sir Henry sharply, his face stiffening.
'Where can you see me, Mannering? I'm rather pressed for time. Is the
smoking-room free?' And with a marked avoidance of any concern with
the gentleman on the floor, who had by now risen to his feet, Sir Henry
made an impatient movement towards a door at the further end of the
library which stood ajar.
Levasseur looked amused. He was a strongly-built, smooth-shaven
fellow, with rather long hair, and the sallow look of the
cigarette-smoker. His eyes were sleepy, his expression indolent or
good-natured.
'Oh, I'll make myself scarce with the greatest pleasure,' he said civilly.
'I can stroll about the park till you're ready for me again,' he added,
turning to the Squire. 'Lovely day--I'll take a book and some cigarettes.'
And diving into an open box which stood near he filled his
cigarette-case from it, and then looked round him for a book. 'Where's
that copy of the _Anthology_? That'll do nicely.'
The Squire burst into a laugh, observing Sir Henry.
'He's over military age, Chicksands.'
'I suppose so,' said Sir Henry stiffly.
'But only by six months, when the Act passed. So he's just escaped

you.'
'I've really no concern whatever with Mr. Levasseur's affairs.' Sir Henry
had flushed angrily. 'Is it to be here, or the smoking-room?'
'Ta-ta! See you again presently,' said Levasseur. 'Ah, there's the book!'
And diving to the floor for a hat and a book lying beside it, he made off,
lighting a cigarette, with a laughing backward glance towards the
Squire and his companion.
'Well, now, what is it?' said Mannering, throwing himself with an air of
resignation into a low arm-chair, and taking out a pipe. 'Won't you
smoke, Chicksands?'
'Thank you, I've had my morning's allowance. Hullo! Who did that?
What an awfully fine thing!'
For suddenly, behind the Squire's head, Chicksands had become aware
of an easel, and on it a charcoal sketch, life-size, of a boy, who seemed
about eighteen or nineteen, in cricketing dress.
The Squire looked round.
'What, that sketch of Desmond? Haven't you seen it? Yes, it's jolly
good. I got Orpen to do it in July.'
Now that Sir Henry had once perceived the drawing it seemed to him to
light up the whole place. The dress was the dress of the Eton Eleven;
there was just a suggestion of pale blue in the sash round the waist. But
the whole impression was Greek in its manly freedom and beauty;
above all in its sacrifice of all useless detail to one broad and simple
effect. Youth, eager, strong, self-confident, with its innocent parted lips,
and its steadfast eyes looking out over the future--the drawing stood
there as the quintessence, the embodiment, of a whole generation. So
might the young Odysseus have looked when he left his mother on his
first journey to hunt the boar with his kinsfolk on Mount Parnassus.
And with such an air had hundreds of thousands of English boys gone
out on a deadlier venture since the great war began, with a like intensity

of will, a like merry scorn of fate.
Sir Henry was conscious of a lump in his throat. He had lost his
youngest son in the retreat from Mons, and two nephews on the
Somme.
'It's wonderful,' he said, not very clearly. 'I envy you such a possession.'
The Squire made no reply. He sat with his long body hunched up in the
deep chair, a pair of brooding eyes fixed on his visitor.
'Well, what is it?' he said again, in a voice that was barely civil.

CHAPTER II
Sir Henry had been talking some time. The Squire had not interrupted
him much, but the papers which Sir Henry had presented to him from
time to time--Government communications, Committee reports, and the
like--were mostly lying on the floor, where, after a perfunctory glance
at them, he had very quickly dropped them.
'Well, that's our case,' said Sir Henry at last, thrusting his hands into his
pockets and leaning back in his chair, 'and I assure you we've taken a
great deal of trouble about it. We shouldn't ask you or anybody else to
do these things if it wasn't vitally necessary for the food-supply of the
country. But we're going to have a narrow squeak for it next spring and
summer, and we must get more