Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/154

 'I thought it was so cruel to say that! And I told her so. It's easier for some boys, than for others, to go into this war, Dr. Sheldon. People don't know what courage it took for Felix. It wasn't the bayonets he was afraid of so much (I don't believe he has looked that far ahead), as of what comes before—the life at a training-camp. The crowds. Being slow and awkward and made fun of. You know comradeship can be awfully cruel if it isn't kind, and Felix is aware of it. He has had experience. And yet knowing what torture it would be to him, he went into it. He didn't have to. His eyes aren't right, but I told him about a boy I knew who got a copy of one of those test-cards they use for eyes and learned it by heart. And Felix did the same thing. And got by! It was I who gota copy of the test-card for Felix, Dr. Sheldon. It was I who helped him learn it. All of a sudden Felix found himself plunged into what was a kind of hell to him. That's what he told me camp-life was to him, but he said he didn't care if it was what I wanted. Why, of course, I had to do my part. When I saw Felix that first night, crammed into that ridiculous uniform and realized that it was all my own work, I'd have felt the worst traitor in the world not to have accepted it as mine.'

'Perhaps,' suggested John Sheldon quietly, 'just because it was an object for ridicule was why you accepted it. Pity and loyalty are often confused.'