“What is affecting your mind?” said Jock, knowing only too well.
“What Cecil says, that you mean to disappoint all our best hopes.”
“There’s no help for it, Sydney,” said Jock, too heavy-hearted for fencing.
“No help. I don’t understand. Why, there’s going to be war, real war, out there.”
“Frontier tribes!”
“What of that? It would lead to something. Besides, no one leaves a corps on active service.”
“Is mine?”
“It is all the same. You were going to get into one that is.”
“Curious reasoning, Sydney. I am afraid my duty lies the other way.”
“Duty to one’s country comes first. I can’t believe Mrs. Brownlow wants to hold you back; she—a soldier’s daughter!”