War—European war was at our very doors, and it seemed more than likely that England was going to join in, Mr. Jessop said.
He went on, quite quietly, to inform us that it would find him ready, he guessed. He'd sent in his application early to the Royal Flying Corps, and he guessed that next time we saw him he'd be an Army aviator all right, in training for using his own bomb-dropper——
Here his young cousin dropped her soup-spoon with a clatter.
"What?" cried Miss Million sharply. "You? If there is any war, shall you start fighting the Germans?"
"I should say so!" smiled Mr. Hiram P. Jessop. "Why, yes!"
"But you're American! Why ever on earth should you fight?" demanded Miss Million rather shrilly. "Nothing to do with you! You aren't English; you aren't Belgium! You belong to a—what's it?—a neutral nation!"
"I guess I'm not going to let that stand in my way any," said Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, "if there's a chance of getting in at those hounds!"
And I saw a curious change come over my mistress's small, bonny face as she regarded this man who—under no obligation to fight—felt he could not merely look on at a struggle between Right and Might.
It was not the sentimental, girlish adoration that she had turned upon her first fancy, the Honourable Jim.
It was the look of a real woman upon the man who pleases her.