“Very well, sir.”
“All right. See you around three o’clock then.”
Rankin’s was a war commission. That is to say, his rating in the naval militia had been accepted at its face value by the navy. He was therefore a full-blown ensign, just the same as any Annapolis graduate, much to the indignation of those same graduates, who had spent many toilsome years in qualifying for the same rank.
Militia commissions were always looked upon with disfavor by the Annapolis men. Rankin, for instance, had put in just two months with the naval militia of his State, and had been elected to a commission by his fellows on account of his happy popularity and his superior experience in flying.
The sacred traditions of the service, therefore, meant nothing to him. Stern discipline and unquestioning obedience were vague unpleasantnesses, half understood, and in theory only. To “stick around the yard,” then, for the rest of the day with nothing to do didn’t have any sense in it; furthermore, there was a girl who lived in West Philadelphia—and there was loads of time before three o’clock.
II.
Within the hour Rankin was ringing that familiar bell on the other side of the river. The girl kept him waiting, to stride nervously up and down the veranda. A wry grin twisted his firm, straight lips. She hadn’t forgotten that little difference, then, and her ultimatum.
When she finally came out, after fully five minutes’ delay, Rankin knew at once from the hard, set look about her usually dimpled mouth, and the steadiness of her gray eyes, that she had been schooling her determination, and that she still considered the barrier to exist. He knew well enough what it was, too, and his first rueful words were meant to remove it.
“Well, Eileen, I’m out of it at last.”
“Out of what?” There was a half hope and a hint of willing surrender in her eager question.