It paid
them--if not in money then in prestige and power. How has it paid you?
You know, every time you look in a mirror. You know that the men that
died were the lucky ones. The country that marched them to the front
with speeches and music when the guns were talking throws them on the
scrapheap when they come back maimed. I have no faith in a country
that takes so much and gives a little so grudgingly. I've learned to
think, Robin, and perhaps it has warped me a little. You have
suffered. So have I, partly because I was ignorant of the nature I was
born with, which you didn't understand and which I'm only myself
beginning to understand--but mostly because the seats of the mighty
were filled by fools and hypocrites seeking their own advantage. Oh,
life is a dreary business sometimes! We want so to be happy. We try so
hard. And mostly we fail."
Her eyes filled with tears, round drops that gathered slowly in the
corners of her puckered lids and spilled over the soft curves of her
cheek. She did not look at Hollister. She stared at the gray river.
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