"If there hadn't been a war there wouldn't have been any service to be
glad about."

"My dear Fanny, it's a perfectly horrible suggestion. Do you mean to say
that I would have brought about that--that infamous tragedy, that I
would have sent thousands and thousands of our lads to their deaths to
get a job for myself? If I thought for one moment that you were
serious--"

"You don't like me to be anything else, dear."

"I certainly don't like you to joke about such subjects."

"Oh, come," said Fanny, "we all enjoyed our war jobs except poor Ralph,
who got gassed first thing, and _then_ concussed with a shell-burst."

"Oh, did he?" said Barbara.

"He did. And don't you think, Horatio, considering the rotten time he's
had, and that he lost a lucrative job through the war, and that you've
done him out of his secretaryship, don't you think you might forgive
him?"

"Of course," said Horatio, "I forgive him."

He had got up to go and had reached the door when Fanny called him back.
"And I can write and ask him to come and dine to-morrow night, can't I?
I want to be quite sure that he _does_ dine."