Anthea stood still just inside the door, looking at him half-expectant, but with something that was suggestive of apprehension in her manner, and Jimmy felt the hot blood creep into his face when he moved quietly forward and kissed her. In view of what he had to do, it would, he felt, have been more natural if she had shrunk from him in place of submitting to his caress. She appeared to recognize the constraint that was upon him, for she turned away and sat down a little distance from him.
"Jimmy," she said, "I'm glad to see you back. I have been lonely without you—and a little uneasy. Indeed, though I don't know exactly why, I am anxious now."
Then she looked at him steadily. "It is the first time you have been here. Something unusual must have brought you. Jimmy, is it war?"
The man made a deprecatory gesture. "I'm afraid it is," he said. "I don't think there can be any compromise."
"Ah!" said the girl, with a start, "you don't look like a man who has come to offer terms."
Jimmy was still standing, and he leaned somewhat heavily on the back of a chair. "I have to do something that I shrink from, but it must be done. If there were no other reason, I daren't go back on the men who have confidence in me; that is—not altogether, though in a way—I am now betraying them. Anthea, you will not let this thing stand between us?"
"No;" and the girl's voice was steady, though a trifle strained. "At least, not always. Still, I have felt that some day I should have to choose whom I should hold to—my father or you. It is very hard to face that question, Jimmy."
"Yes," said Jimmy gravely; "I am afraid you must choose to-night. You know how much I want you, but I have sense enough to recognize that I may bring trouble on both of us if I urge you to do what you might afterward regret."
Anthea said nothing for almost a minute, and because of the restraint he had laid upon himself Jimmy understood the cost of her quietness. It seemed necessary that both should hold themselves in hand. Then she turned to him again.
"You are quite sure there can be no compromise?"