But both he and she were aware of that strange numbness which in the fourth year of the war has been creeping over all the belligerent nations, so that horror has lost its first edge, and the minds, whether of soldiers in the field, or of civilians at home, have become hardened to facts or ideas which would once have stirred in them wild ferments of rage and terror.
'Shall we win, this year, Desmond ?' said Pamela, as they stood gazing out into the park, where, above a light silvery mist a young moon was riding in a clear blue.

Not a branch stirred in the great leafless trees; only an owl's plaintive cry seemed to keep in rhythm with that sinister murmur on the horizon.
'Win ?--this year ?' said the boy, with a shrug.

'Don't reckon on it, Pam.

Those Russian fools have dished it all for months!' 'But the Americans will make up ?' Desmond assented eagerly.

And in the minds of the English boy and girl there rose a kind of vague vision of an endless procession of great ships, on a boundless ocean, carrying men, and men, and more men--guns, and aeroplanes, and shining piles of shells--bringing the New World to the help of the Old.
Desmond turned to his sister.
'Look here, Pam, this time next week I shall be in the line.