"The first time I ever saw you, I said to myself that you were a brave, indomitable little soldier," he said warmly. "I am more than ever convinced of it now."
"The men of my family have been soldiers for ten generations," she said simply, as if that covered everything. "They haven't all been heroes but none of them has been a coward."
"I can believe that," he said. "Blood will tell."
"If God gives back my country to my people, Mr. Barnes," she said, after a long silence, "will you not one day make your way out there to us, so that we may present some fitting expression of the gratitude—"
"Don't speak of gratitude," he exclaimed. "I don't want to be thanked. Good Lord, do you suppose I—"
"There, there! Don't be angry," she cried. "But you must come to my country. You must see it. You will love it."
"But suppose that God does not see fit to restore it to you. Suppose that he leaves it in the hands of the vandals. What then? Will you go back to—that?"
She was still for a long time. "I shall not return to my country until it is free again, Mr. Barnes," she said, and there was a break in her voice.
"You—you will remain in MY country?" he asked, leaning closer to her ear.
"The world is large," she replied. "I shall have to live somewhere. It may be here, it may be France, or England or Switzerland."