Otherwise she pined in idleness, refusing more
than ever the devotion that Jim offered her now in a longing that
increased with denial.
She suffered infinitely, yet mocked her own sufferings as petty
trifles. She contrasted them with what the millions on millions
of Europe's men were enduring as they huddled in the snow-drenched,
grenade-spattered trenches, or agonized in all their wounds out in
the No-Man's Land between the trenches. She told herself that her
own heartaches were negligible, despicable against the innumerable
anguishes of the women who saw their men, their old men, their
young men, their lads, going into the eternal mills of the war,
while hunger and loneliness and toil unknown to women before made
up their daily portion.
She accused herself for still remaining apart from that continental
sisterhood of grief. All America seemed to be playing Hamlet,
debating, deferring, letting irresolution inhibit every necessary
duty.
Since her country had disowned her and refused her justice or
chivalry, she was tempted to disown her country and claim citizenship
among those who could fight and could sacrifice and could endure.
It was not easy to persuade a captain to take a woman passenger
aboard his ship, now that the German ambition was to sink a million
tons a month, but she resolved again to go if she had to stowaway.
First she would finish her affairs, make her will, and burn her
letters. She had neglected to change the testament she had signed
when she became Peter Cheever's wife, and took a pride in making him
her sole heir.
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