Archie ruminated upon this in silence. "I get you," he said at last. "Let 'em think we're sort of helpless, like—like children, eh? But it's pretty hard accepting money from a woman!"
"Why? When we have consented to accept life itself from a woman—Where there is love there is no debt, Blair!"
"I guess that's right," said Archie slowly. "What's mine is hers of course; and so what's hers is mine—But speaking of the war—"
It happened that they had not been speaking of the war at all, though it hung in the background of their talk, grim and menacing, as it hung in the background of all talk just then.
"Yes, Blair?"
"We're getting into it at last, thank God! And as soon as we do, I'm going."
"Of course," said Nikolai.
Archie turned to him eagerly. "You think I've got a right to go?"
"So much of a right that I've come out here largely to see how I can help you—Of course you know," he added after a moment's hesitation, "that anything I have will go some day to my namesake Stefan?"
"Say, that's great!" cried Archie, beaming. "That makes me mighty easy about the future! And the present's all right, too. I'm pretty sure of getting a commission, and Joan makes more money than I do now. The thing that's been troubling me is wondering how you'd ever get paid back.... I'm pretty tall for the trenches," he explained. "And I seem to get sort of careless when I'm excited—the Irish coming out on me, I reckon. The chances are against my coming back. And in that case all you'd get would be—Joan."