im.

"God," he prayed, whispering it as the little girls passed on singing,
"help me to protect them; help me to forget myself." And the miracle
that sends an answer sometimes, even in this twentieth century, to true
prayer happened to Jim Barlow. Behold he had forgotten himself. With his
head up and peace in his breast, and the look in his face already,
though he did not know it, that our soldier boys wear, he turned and
started at a great pace down the street to the recruiting office.

"Why, you did come."

It was nine o'clock and he stood with lighted face in the middle of the
little library. And she came in; it was an event to which he never got
used, Mary's coming into a room. The room changed always into such an
astonishing place.

"Mary, I've done it. I'm--" his voice choked a bit--"I'm a soldier." He
laughed at that. "Well not so you'd notice it, yet. But I've taken the
first step."

"I knew, Jim. You said you were going to enlist. Why did you telephone
you couldn't come?"

He stared down at her, holding her hands yet. He felt, unphrased,
strong, the overwhelming conviction that she was the most desirable
thing on earth. And directly on top of that conviction another, that he
would be doing her desirableness, her loveliness less than the highest
honor if he posed before her in false colors. At whatever cost to
himself he must be honest with her. Also--he was something more now
than his own man; he was a soldier of America, and inside and out he
would be, for America's sake, the best that was in him to be.

"Mary, I've got a thing to tell you."

"Yes?" The sure way in which she smiled up at him made the effort
harder.

"I fooled you. You think I'm a hero. And I'm not. I'm a--" for the life
of him he could not get out the word "coward." He went on: "I'm a blamed
baby." And he told her in a few words, yet plainly enough what he had
gone through in the long afternoon. "It was the kiddies who clinched it,
with their flags and their hair ribbons--and their Yankee boys. I
couldn't stand for--not playing square with them."

Suddenly he gripped her hands so that it hurt. "Mary, God help me, I'll
try to fight the devils over there so that kiddies like that, and--you,
and all the blessed people, the whole dear shooting-match will be safe
over here. I'm glad--I'm so glad I'm going to have a hand in it. Mary,
it's queer, but I'm happier than I've been in months. Only"--his brows
drew anxiously. "Only I'm scared