“At what you’ve done it—at what you’re doing it—for.”
She may have smiled behind the yashmak as she said, “What difference does it make to you?”
“I dare say it doesn’t make any—except that I seem to be the person benefited.”
“In time of war the soldier—the man who does the thing—is the person benefited.”
“Oh no; there’s the cause.”
“But surely, if we’ve learned anything during the past two years, it’s that what the soldier does for the cause can’t compare with what the cause does for the soldier.”
I saw my opportunity and was quick to use it. “So that out of what you’ve been doing for me even you have got something.”
She turned this neatly. “I’ve got a great deal—out of what I’ve been doing for every one. Not that it’s been much. I merely mean that, whatever it’s been, it’s brought me in far more than I’ve ever given out.”
The swing of the boat was so abrupt as almost to make her heel over. Up and down the deck such passengers as were clinging to nothing were flung this way and that, with some laughing and a few involuntary cries. Miss Barry having braced me in a corner of the alcove because of my game leg, I kept my footing steadily, but the girl herself was thrown square into my arms.