"We have to nurse you in wars, Jeb, just as we do in times of peace," she laughed. "Really, I don't see how such big babies as some men I know can conduct a first class war, anyhow!"
This was the old Marian again; lightly bantering, deliciously good to look upon. He moved close to her, and asked earnestly:
"Why did you run away from me?"
"I wanted to be a nurse," she answered.
"But why did you decide so quickly to be a nurse?"
She hesitated, then smiled:
"It was better than the other alternative."
"Now that you are a nurse, can't you accept the other alternative, too? You know I want you just as much."
His voice, deep and resonant with a timbre that went to women's hearts, thrilled her delightfully. But she had not forgiven him for the paper target episode, wherein she had been pushed aside to make way for his skill. There were, moreover, plans that had been fermenting in her mind for many months—plans of which marriage should not be a part—and she answered him frankly:
"I really don't know at all, Jeb—I haven't had time to think. Of course, should our country get into this war, daddy has promised to let me go across at once; otherwise he insists that I can't. Still, if I go to France, you will, too, for that matter," she added brightly. Then the color flew to her cheeks. "Maybe when I saw you in uniform, Jeb, and realized that you—that we might neither of us get back, then I might—we might——"