en the infidel Turk spanked the
Christian Greek; and one he had watched from inside a British square,
where he was greatly alarmed lest he should be trampled upon by
terrified camels. This had happened before he and she had met. After
they met, she told him that what chances he had chosen to take before he
came into her life fell outside of her jurisdiction. But now that his
life belonged to her, this talk of his standing up to be shot at was
wicked. It was worse than wicked; it was absurd.

When the _Maine_ sank in Havana harbor and the word "war" was appearing
hourly in hysterical extras, Miss Armitage explained her position.

"You mustn't think," she said, "that I am one of those silly girls who
would beg you not to go to war."

At the moment of speaking her cheek happened to be resting against his,
and his arm was about her, so he humbly bent his head and kissed her,
and whispered very proudly and softly, "No, dearest."

At which she withdrew from him frowning.

"No! I'm not a bit like those girls," she proclaimed. "I merely tell you
_you can't go_! My gracious!" she cried, helplessly. She knew the words
fell short of expressing her distress, but her education had not
supplied her with exclamations of greater violence.

"My goodness!" she cried. "How can you frighten me so? It's not like
you," she reproached him. "You are so unselfish, so noble. You are
always thinking of other people. How can you talk of going to war--to be
killed--to me? And now, now that you have made me love you so?"

The hands, that when she talked seemed to him like swallows darting and
flashing in the sunlight, clutched his sleeve. The fingers, that he
would rather kiss than the lips of any other woman that ever lived,
clung to his arm. Their clasp reminded him of that of a drowning child
he had once lifted from the surf.

"If you should die," whispered Miss Armitage. "What would I do. What
would I do!"

"But my dearest," cried the young man. "My dearest _one_! I've _got_ to
go. It's our own war. Everybody else will go," he pleaded. "Every man
you know, and they're going to fight, too. I'm going only to look on.
That's bad enough, isn't it, without sitting at home? You should be
sorry I'm not going to fight."

"Sorry!" exclaimed the girl. "If you love me--"

"If I love you," shouted the young man. His voice suggested that he was
about to shake her. "How dare you?"

She abandoned that position and attacked from one more logical.