"What!" cried Beresford, sitting up straight in his surprise. "Am I as bad as that?"
"You're just weak and want building up," was the reply.
For some time the two men continued to smoke in silence.
"I suppose the war cheapens human life," said Beresford irrelevantly.
Tallis looked across at him; but made no comment.
"I noticed out there," continued Beresford, "that men new to the game seemed so different from those who had been at it a year or two."
"In what way?"
"They seemed more vital. They were interested, curious. They asked all sorts of what seemed to us old hands stupid questions." He paused, and Tallis nodded his head comprehendingly.
"Then they would gradually become absorbed in the atmosphere of fatalism that seemed to grip us all. It was very strange," he added, half to himself.
"What about the cheapening of life?"
"It's a bit difficult to express," said Beresford slowly, "but somehow or other I seem to feel that the old idea of the sacredness of human life has gone for ever as far as I am concerned." Again he paused and for some seconds smoked in silence, then he continued whimsically, "Take an exaggerated case. Before the war if a man had"
"Stolen from you the girl with the eyes, shall we say," suggested Tallis gravely.
