Self-preservation was the first law of nature.

And all the standards of life were abased.

Following the terrible fever of patriotism and sacrifice and fear came the inevitable selfishness and greed and frenzy.

The primitive in man stalked forth.

The world became a place of strife.
What then, reflected Lane, could have been the effect of war upon women?
The mothers of the race, of men! The creatures whom emotions governed! The beings who had the sex of tigresses! "The female of the species!" What had the war done to the generation of its period--to Helen, to Mel Iden, to Lorna, to Bessy Bell?
Had it made them what men wanted?
At eight o'clock that night Lane kept his tryst with Bessy.