smiling.

"I--I'm afraid I misunderstood your asking me to visit you," he said. "I
thank you. I'm proud and glad that you call me your friend. It will be
splendid to remember--when I am over there."

"I wonder if we could talk of anything except trouble and war," replied
Lenore, plaintively. "If we can't, then let's look at the bright side."

"Is there a bright side?" he asked, with his sad smile.

"Every cloud, you know.... For instance, if you go to war--"

"Not if. I _am_ going," he interrupted.

"Oh, so you say," returned Lenore, softly. And she felt deep in her the
inception of a tremendous feminine antagonism. It stirred along her
pulse. "Have your own way, then. But _I_ say, _if_ you go, think how
fine it will be for me to get letters from you at the front--and to
write you!"

"You'd like to hear from me?... You would answer?" he asked,
breathlessly.

"Assuredly. And I'll knit socks for you."

"You're--very good," he said, with strong feeling.

Lenore again saw his eyes dim. How strangely sensitive he was! If he
exaggerated such a little kindness as she had suggested, if he responded
to it with such emotion, what would he do when the great and marvelous
truth of her love was flung in his face? The very thought made Lenore
weak.

"You'll go to training-camp," went on Lenore, "and because of your
wonderful physique and your intelligence you will get a commission. Then
you'll go to--France." Lenore faltered a little in her imagined
prospect. "You'll be in the thick of the great battles. You'll give and
take. You'll kill some of those--those--Germans. You'll be wounded and
you'll be promoted.... Then the Allies will win. Uncle Sam's grand army
will have saved the world.... Glorious!... You'll come back--home to
us--to take the place dad offered you.... There! that is the bright
side."

Indeed, the brightness seemed reflected in Dorn's face.

"I never dreamed you could be like this," he said, wonderingly.

"Like what?"

"I don't know just what I mean. Only you're different from my--my
fancies. Not cold or--or proud."

"You're beginning to get acquainted with me, that's all. After you've
been here awhile--"

"Please don't make it so hard for me," he interrupted, appealingly. "I
can't stay."

"Don't you want to?" she asked.

"Yes. And I will stay a couple of days. But no longer. It'll be hard
enough to go then."

"Perhaps I--we'll make it so hard for you that you can't go."

Then he gazed p