Now he was awkwardly tugging something from his pocket. Almost diffidently he offered it to Ruth. It was a small box of candy.
"Here…" he said, clumsily.
"For me!" Ruth was overpowered. This demigod had brought HER a gift. He had thought about her—insignificant her! True, she had talked with him, had even taken walks with him, but those things had not been significant. It had seemed he merely condescended to the daughter of a martyr to his cause. He had been paying a tribute to her father. But a gift—a personal gift such as any young man might make to a girl whose favor he sought! Could it mean…?
Then she saw that he was embarrassed, actually embarrassed before her, and she was ashamed of herself for it. But she saw, too, that in him was a human man, a man with fears and sensations and desires and weaknesses like other men. After all, a demigod is only half of Olympus.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you SO much."
"You're not—offended?"
He was recovering himself. In an instant he was back again in character.
"We men," he said, "who are devoted to the Cause have little time in our lives for such things. The Cause demands all. When we go into it we give up much that other men enjoy. We are wanderers. We have no homes. We can't AFFORD to have homes….I," he said, it proudly, "have been in jail more than once. A man cannot ask a woman to share such a life. A man who leads such a life has no place in it for a woman."
"I should think," she said, "that women would be proud to share such a life. To know they were helping a little! To know they were making one comfortable spot for you to come to and rest when you were tired or discouraged…."
"Comforts are not for us," he said, theatrically, yet he did not seem theatrical to her, only nobly self-sacrificing.