"Well!" he drawled, without greeting. "They've done it. The English have
got us. We hadn't a chance. The little Welshman--"
"Come in," Clayton said, "and talk like an American and not an Irishman.
I don't want to know what you think about Lloyd George. What are you
going to do?"
"I was thinking," Nolan observed, advancing, "of blowing up Washington.
We'd have a fresh start, you see. With Washington gone root and branch
we would have some sort of chance, a clear sweep, with the capital here
or in Boston. Or London."
Clayton laughed. Behind Nolan's cynicism he felt a real disturbance. But
Dunbar eyed him uncertainly. He didn't know about some of these Irish.
They'd fight like hell, of course, if only they'd forget England.
"Don't worry about Washington," Clayton said. "Let it work out its own
problems. We will have our own. What do you suppose men like you and
myself are going to do? We can't fight."
Nolan settled himself in a long chair.
"Why can't we fight?" he asked. "I heard something the other day.
Roosevelt is going to take a division abroad--older men. I rather like
the idea. Wherever he goes there'll be fighting. I'm no Rough Rider, God
knows; but I haven't spent a half hour every noon in a gymnasium for the
last ten years for nothing. And I can shoot."
"And you are free," Clayton observed, quietly.
Nolan looked up.
"It's going to be hard on the women," he said. "You're all right. They
won't let you go. You're too useful where you are. But of course there's
the boy."
When Clayton made no reply Nolan glanced at him again.
"I suppose he'll want to go," he suggested.
Clayton's face was set. For more than an hour now Graham had been
closeted with his mother, and as the time went on, and no slam of a door
up-stairs told of his customary method of leaving a room, he had been
conscious of a growing uneasiness. The boy was soft; the fiber in him
had not been hardened yet, not enough to be proof against tears. He
wanted desperately to leave Nolan, to go up and learn what arguments,
what coaxing and selfish whimperings Natalie was using with the boy.
But he wanted, also desperately, to have the boy fight his own fight and
win.
"He will want to go, I think. Of course, his mother will be shaken just
now. It'll all new to her. She wouldn't believe it was coming."