Flossie's husband, Sam, had departed for the Navy; and Niel Singleton,
who had offered and been rejected for the Army, had joined a Red Cross
unit. Madge herself was taking up canteen work. Joan rather expected
Flossie to be in favour of the war, and Madge against it. Instead of
which, it turned out the other way round. It seemed difficult to
forecast opinion in this matter.
Madge thought that England, in particular, had been too much given up to
luxury and pleasure. There had been too much idleness and empty
laughter: Hitchicoo dances and women undressing themselves upon the
stage. Even the working classes seemed to think of nothing else but
cinemas and beer. She dreamed of a United Kingdom purified by suffering,
cleansed by tears; its people drawn together by memory of common
sacrifice; class antagonism buried in the grave where Duke's son and
cook's son would lie side by side: of a new-born Europe rising from the
ashes of the old. With Germany beaten, her lust of war burnt out, her
hideous doctrine of Force proved to be false, the world would breathe a
freer air.
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