For Jack Maitland held the extreme and, in certain circles, unpopular creed that the citizen who came richer out of a war which had left his country submerged in debt, and which had drained away its best blood and left it poorer in its manhood by well-nigh seventy thousand of its noblest youth left upon the battlefields of the various war fronts and by the hundreds of thousands who would go through life a burden to themselves and to those to whom they should have been a support--that citizen was accursed.

If Adrien chose to be a friend of such a man, by that choice she classified herself as impossible of friendship for Jack.

It had hurt a bit.

But what was one hurt more or less to one whom the war had left numb in heart and bereft of ambition?
He was not going to pity himself.

He was lucky indeed to have his body and nerve still sound and whole, but they need not expect him to show any great keenness in the chase for a few more thousands that would only rank him among those for whom the war had not done so badly.