Potterism | Page 8

loyalty might as well be kept, among the general destruction which he, more sanguinely than Gideon, hoped for.
But the twins did not bother. Jane said, in her equable way, 'You'll be bored to death; angry, too; but come if you like.... We've a sister, more Potterish than the parents. She'll hate you.'
Gideon said, 'I expect so,' and they left his prospective visit at that, with Jane chuckling quietly at her private vision of Gideon and Clare in juxtaposition.
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But Socialist Cecily did not have a good sale after all. It was guillotined, with many of its betters, by the European war, which began while the Anti-Potters were at Swanage, a place replete with Potterism. Potterism, however, as a subject for investigation, had by this time given place to international diplomacy, that still more intriguing study. The Anti-Potters abused every government concerned, and Gideon said, on August 1st, 'We shall be fools if we don't come in.'
Juke was still dubious. He was a good Radical, and good Radicals were dubious on this point until the invasion of Belgium.
'To throw back the world a hundred years....'
Gideon shrugged his shoulders. He belonged to no political party, and had the shrewd, far-seeing eyes of his father's race.
'It's going to be thrown back anyhow. Germany will see to that. And if we keep out of it, Germany will grab Europe. We've got to come in, if we can get a decent pretext.'
The decent pretext came in due course, and Gideon said, 'So that's that.'
He added to the Potters, 'For once I am in agreement with your father's press. We should be lunatics to stand out of this damnable mess.'
Juke also was now, painful to him though it was to be so, in agreement with the Potter press. To him the war had become a crusade, a fight for decency against savagery.
'It's that,' said Gideon. 'But that's not all. This isn't a show any country can afford to stand out of. It's Germany against Europe, and if Europe doesn't look sharp, Germany's going to win. _Germany._ Nearly as bad as Russia.... One would have to emigrate to another hemisphere.... No, we've got to win this racket.... But, oh, Lord, what a mess!' He fell to biting his nails, savage and silent.
Jane thought all the time, beneath her other thoughts about it, 'To have a war, just when life was beginning and going to be such fun.'
Beneath her public thoughts about the situation, she felt this deep private disgust gnawing always, as of one defrauded.

CHAPTER III
OPPORTUNITY
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They did not know then about people in general going to the war. They thought it was just for the army and navy, not for ordinary people. That idea came a little later, after the Anti-Potter party had broken up and gone home.
The young men began to enlist and get commissions. It was done; it was the correct idea. Johnny Potter, who belonged to an O.T.C., got a commission early.
Jane said within herself, 'Johnny can go and I can't.' She knew she was badly, incredibly left. Johnny was in the movement, doing the thing that mattered. Further, Johnny might ultimately be killed in doing it; her Johnny. Everything else shrank and was little. What were books? What was anything? Jane wanted to fight in the war. The war was damnable, but it was worse to be out of it. One was such an utter outsider. It wasn't fair. She could fight as well as Johnny could. Jane went about white and sullen, with her world tumbling into bits about her.
Mr. Potter said in the press, and Mrs. Potter in the home, 'The people of England have a great opportunity before them. We must all try to rise to it'--as if the people of England were fishes and the opportunity a fly.
Opportunity, thought Jane. Where is it? I see none. It was precisely opportunity which the war had put an end to.
'The women of England must now prove that they are worthy of their men,' said the Potter press.
'I dare say,' thought Jane. Knitting socks and packing stores and learning first aid. Who wanted to do things like that, when their brothers had a chance to go and fight in France? Men wouldn't stand it, if it was the other way round. Why should women always get the dull jobs? It was because they bore them cheerfully; because they didn't really, for the most part, mind, Jane decided, watching the attitude of her mother and Clare. The twins, profoundly selfish, but loving adventure and placidly untroubled by nerves or the prospect of physical danger, saw no hardship in active service. (This was before the first winter and the development of trench warfare, and people pictured to themselves skirmishes in the open, exposed to missiles, but at least keeping warm).
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Every one one knew was going.