491

Behind the Government.

I

"The whole country," said Sprague Effingham, leaning back in
his chair and setting down his wine-glass impressively, "the whole coun-
try is behind the government."

He glanced about the dinner-table and caught the look of ap-
proval on every face. On his wife's it amounted to positive admiration;
and it was a look he always sought there with singular eagerness, as if
each time might be the last. There was no false modesty about Mr.
Effingham; but, after all, Lydia was considerably younger than himself—
though he knew he didn't show his age— and... well, when she disa-
greed with him, it did not please him as much as people thought to be
reminded that she was "hardly more than a child." As a matter of fact,
she was a well-settled and energetic young woman of twenty-nine, with
strong opinions and an impulsive nature; and that her admiration was
quite spontaneous and extremely flattering. He let his eyes rest on her
as he repeated his proposition, and the visible intensity of her approval
sent a pleasant glow through his veins. "Dear child!" he thought (he
liked to think of her youth when she agreed with him.)

"The whole country," he repeated, as if he were its authorized
spokesman.

From where he sat, at the end of the long shining table, the
face of one of his guests was hidden from him by a rebellious branch of
"Dorothy Richardson" which had broken from its place in the skilfully
grouped flower-piece between the silver branch-lights. It was one of
Sprague Effingham's rules—he was fond of saying "the articles of my
creed"— that flowers on a dinner-table should be kept low, so that all
the guests could see each other; but this one branch had sprung out of

2

place, and hid the face of his wife's cousin, Andrew Brant. It didn't
in the least matter what Andrew thought; he seldom expressed an opinion,
anyhow; when he disagreed with one (on grounds he rarely deigned to
state) he simply pushed his wine-glasses a little farther away from his
plate— and as no one at table knew of this peculiarity but Sprague
Effingham (how should Lydia?), Andrew Brant's possible disagreement was
not of the slightest consequence. But Effingham was in the mood when
nothing short of universal acquiescence could satisfy him, and talking
at the branch of *Dorothy Richards*— which masked his cousin-in-law,
he continued: "And when I say that, no one can accuse me of being in-
fluenced by interested motives. I suppose no one in this room— as in
the whole of Lakeridge— is less likely to be affected, one way or the
other, by the economic results of our going to war, than I am. Our
friend Guthry, now" (Mr. Calvin Guthry was the New York banker who had
bought a big place at the upper end of the lake the year before), "our
friend Guthry, who agrees with me, I know," ("Entirely, entirely," from
Mr. Guthry) "might be unconsciously influenced by considerations that no
business man need be ashamed of. Nobody with a grain of common-sense
could blame him if he were. Our men of business are our natural guard-
ians: *they* are the army of America. What's that old thing about
'Britannia needs no bulwarks'? Well, America needs no bulwarks but her
business men. And so, I say, Mr. Guthry agrees with me for reasons I
entirely approve and understand. But his point of view is different
from mine. I look at the question from the position of a man absolutely
proof against the possible consequences of a war. The Germans are not
likely to sack *this house*— Mr. Effingham threw a pleased look about
the warm walnut panelling, the soft *verdures* between the windows, the
unbelieved Gilbert Stuart above the mantel-piece — "and short of doing
that, I don't see how their brightness could reach me. So when I say
*we don't want war!* I believe I'm expressing a disinterested opinion and

3

stating an undisputed fact." Effingham paused to let this sink in, be-
fore adding impressively: "We don't want war, and we oughtn't to want
war."

"Certainly _not_," said Mr. Mallow, the pleasant and conversible
Rector of a fashionable New York church, to whom one could talk on all
subjects as to a man of the world.

"Ah, you see, there," exclaimed Effingham, involuntarily ad-
dressing the branch of Dorothy Richardson. "Mallow isn't afraid to say
it either: the country oughtn't to want war."

Mr. Mallow laid his large consoling hands finger to finger.
"You're quite right, my dear Effingham; I don't say it as a 'parson',
you know; I'm afraid I seldom talk simply in that capacity. I speak as
an American citizen; and I say that no one who knows what American cit-
izenship stands for ought for an instant to wish to see our country in-
volved in this hideous cataclysm. Let us do all we can to bring help
and comfort to those who are suffering by it. I speak both as a parson
and as a citizen when I say that. But don't let us be carried away by
our righteous indignation at such horrors to the point of forgetting our
own duties. We did not seek this war; we are in no way involved in it;
and our government has expressed the feeling of the whole country in
showing that we are not to be dragged into it by any amount of wanton
provocation."