In her last
letter, she told me that she was only waiting for my uncle's
permission to go out as a nurse."
"Is that what you would do?"
Her head lifted itself proudly.
"No. She can take care of the wounded men, if she chooses. For my
part, I'd rather cheer on the men who are starting for the front. If
I could know that one man, one single man, fought the better for
having known me, I should feel as if I had done my share."
She spoke with fiery vigor; then her eyes dropped again to the
dancing waves. When at length she spoke again, she was once more the
level-voiced English girl who sat next him at the table.
"You are going out to Cape Town to stay, Mr. Weldon?" she asked,
with an accent so utterly conventional that Weldon almost doubted
his own ears.
"To stay until the war ends," he replied, in an accent as
conventional as her own.
"In Cape Town?" Then she felt her eyes drawn to meet his eyes, as he
answered quietly,--
"I shall do my best to make myself a place in the firing line."
Again her conventionality vanished, and she gave him her hand, as if
to seal a compact.
"I hope you will win it and hold it," she responded slowly.
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