The pages of The Times grew semi-transparent, and G.J. descried Concepcion moving mysteriously in a mist behind them.  Only then did he begin effectively to realise her experiences and her achievement and her ordeal on the distant, romantic Clyde.  He said to himself:  “I could never have stood what she has stood.”  She was a terrific woman; but because she was such a mixture of the mad-heroic and the silly-foolish, he rather condescended to her.  She lacked what he was sure he possessed, and what he prized beyond everything—­poise.  And had she truly had a nervous breakdown, or was that fancy?  Did she truly despair of herself as a ruined woman, doubly ruined, or was she acting a part, as much in order to impress herself as in order to impress others?  He thought the country and particularly its Press, was somewhat like Concepcion as a complex.  He condescended to Queenie also, not bitterly, but with sardonic pity.  There she was, unalterable by any war, instinctively and ruthlessly working out her soul and her destiny.  The country was somewhat like Queenie too.  But, of course, comparison between Queenie and Concepcion was absurd.  He had had to defend himself to Concepcion.  And had he not defended himself?

True, he had begun perhaps too slowly to work for the war; however, he had begun.  What else could he have done beyond what he had done?  Become a special constable?  Grotesque.  He simply could not see himself as a special constable, and if the country could not employ him more usefully than in standing on guard over an electricity works or a railway bridge in the middle of the night, the country deserved to lose his services.  Become a volunteer?  Even more grotesque.  Was he, a man turned fifty, to dress up and fall flat on the ground at the word of some fantastic jackanapes, or stare into vacancy while some inspecting general examined his person as though it were a tailor’s mannikin?  He had tried several times to get into a Government department which would utilise his brains, but without success.  And the club hummed with the unimaginable stories related by disappointed and dignified middle-aged men whose too eager patriotism had been rendered ridiculous by the vicious foolery of Government departments.  No!  He had some work to do and he was doing it.  People were looking to him for decision, for sagacity, for initiative; he supplied these things.  His work might grow even beyond his expectations; but if it did not he should not worry.  He felt that, unfatigued, he could and would contribute to the mass of the national resolution in the latter and more racking half of the war.