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Page 32
"Well," the man answered, "not so very great, I suppose, as it's what
all young Americans are doing. I rather think it's one of those things,
like spelling, which are no particular credit if you do them, but a
disgrace if you don't."
"What a gray way of looking at it!" the girl objected. "As if all the
country wasn't glorying in the boys who go! As if we didn't all stand
back of you and crowd the side lines to watch you, bursting with pride.
You know we all love you."
"Do you love me, Mary? Enough to marry me before I go?" His voice was
low, but the girl missed no syllable. She had heard those words or some
like them in his voice before.
"Oh, Jim," she begged, "don't ask me now. I'm not certain--yet. I--I
couldn't get along very well without you. I care a lot. But--I'm not
just sure it's--the way I ought to care to marry you."
As alone in the packed car as in a wood, the little drama went on and no
one noticed. "I'm sorry, Mary." The tone was dispirited. "I could go
with a lot lighter heart if we belonged to each other."
"Don't say that, Jim," she pleaded. "You make me out--a slacker. You
don't want me to marry you as a duty?"
"Good Lord, no!"
"I know that. And I--do care. There's nobody like you. I admire you so
for going--but you're not afraid of anything. It's easy for you, that
part. I suppose a good many are really--afraid. Of the guns and the
horror--all that. You're lucky, Jim. You don't give that a thought."
The man flashed an odd look, and then regarded his hands joined on his
knee.
"I do appreciate your courage. I admire that a lot. But somehow Jim
there's a doubt that holds me back. I can't be sure I--love you enough;
that it's the right way--for that."
The man sighed. "Yes," he said. "I see. Maybe some time. Heavens knows I
wouldn't want you unless it was whole-hearted. I wouldn't risk your
regretting it, not if I wanted you ten times more. Which is impossible."
He put out his big hand with a swift touch on hers. "Maybe some time.
Don't worry," he said. "I'm yours." And went on in a commonplace tone,
"I think I'll show up at the recruiting office this afternoon, and I'll
come to your house in the evening as usual. Is that all right?"
The car sped into Albany and the man went to her door with the girl and
left her with few words more and those about commonplace subjects. As
he swung down the street he went over the episode in his mind, and
dissected it and dwelt on words and phrases and glances, and drew
conclusions as lovers have done before, each detail, each conclusion
mightily important, outweighing weeks of conversation of the rest of the
world together. At last he shook his head and set his lips.
"It's not honest." He formed the words with his lips now, a summing up
of many thoughts in his brain. The brain went on elaborating the text.
"She thinks I'm brave; she thinks it's easy for me to face enlisting,
and the rest. She thinks I'm the makeup which can meet horror and
suffering light-heartedly. And I'm not. She admires me for that--she
said so. I'm not it. I'm fooling her; it's not honest. Yet"--he groaned
aloud. "Yet I may lose her if I tell her the truth. I'm afraid. I am. I
hate it. I can't bear--I can't bear to leave my job and my future, just
when it's opening out. But I could do that. Only I'm--Oh, damnation--I'm
afraid. Horror and danger, agony of men and horses, myself wounded
maybe, out on No Man's Land--left there--hours. To die like a dog. Oh,
my God--must I? If I tell it will break the little hold I have on her.
Must I go to this devil's dance that I hate--and give up her love
besides? But yet--it isn't honest to fool her. Oh, God, what will I do?"
People walking up State Street, meeting a sober-faced young man, glanced
at him with no particular interest. A woman waiting on a doorstep
regarded him idly.
"Why isn't he in uniform?" she wondered as one does wonder in these days
at a strong chap in mufti. Then she rebuked her thought. "Undoubtedly
there's a good reason; American boys are not slackers."
His slow steps carried him beyond her vision and casual thought. The
people in the street and the woman on the doorstep did not think or care
that what they saw was a man fighting his way through the crisis of his
life, fighting alone "per aspera ad astra--" through thorns to the
stars.
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