“We won’t son,” said his father, kindly. “Thank Heaven, we will have the broad Atlantic between us and the horrors of war!”
“War? Who talks of war?” cried little Mrs. Applegate, coming breezily up to them from the depths, where she had probably been giving some very important instructions for dinner. “I won’t have the ugly word spoken on board my ship. Why, everybody looks as if they had seen a ghost. What have you been talking about?”
“Why, you heard, my dear,” said her husband, kindly. “We were simply discussing the possibility of——”
“Stop!” shrieked the little woman, clapping her hands to her ears. “I won’t have it! Somebody start the phonograph—do!”
Gordon laughingly obeyed and soon they were all dancing merrily as if the great cloud of war were not hanging over all Europe. When the young folks were tired of dancing they settled themselves comfortably on the deck, talking, laughing, singing college songs, and otherwise enjoying themselves.
It was not till evening, when they had bidden their hosts good-night, after thanking them heartily for “the most glorious day they had ever spent,” that the topic of the afternoon was again referred to.
“Do you think there is really any possibility of war?” Lucile asked of Archie, as they were nearing the hotel.
“There’s no telling,” he answered, seriously. “It looks rather like it now. You and I needn’t worry, anyhow; we won’t get any of it. Unless,” he added, whimsically, “unless you should decide to go as a Red Cross nurse. Then I might even desert the Red, White and Blue and volunteer my services in the war.”
And so they parted, with an almost imperceptible cloud shadowing their gayety. Little did Archie think, when he declared so confidently that “they wouldn’t get any of it,” that before the summer was over, they would experience to some infinitesimal extent the cruel, relentless, crushing power of that tremendous grinding machine men term—WAR!