Graham, made a man by war and by the love of a good woman.
Chris, ending his sordid life in a blaze of glory, and forever
forgiven his tawdry sins because of his one big hour.
War took, but it gave also. It had taken Joey, for instance, but
Joey had had his great moment. It was better to have one great
moment and die than to drag on through useless years. And it was
the same way with a nation. A nation needed its hour. It was
only in a crisis that it could know its own strength. How many
of them, who had been at that dinner of Natalie's months before,
had met their crisis bravely! Nolan was in France now. Doctor
Haverford was at the front. Audrey was nursing Graham. Marion
Hayden was in a hospital training-School. Rodney Page was still
building wooden barracks in a cantonment in Indiana, and was
making good. He himself -
They could never go back, none of them, to the old smug, complacent,
luxurious days. They could no more go back than Joey could return
to life again.
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