"Deep feeling isn't so easily shaken; true love should brave all things—even sneers and blows."
"If I should tell you that I loved somebody, I am sure you would make me seem ridiculous or ignorant of my own mind."
"Then pray be wise and don't tell me. It's bad enough to be in love, without being photographed in the agony."
He looked at her in angry perplexity. Could she ever be serious? Was all the tenderness of the past only heedless coquetry? Had she danced with him, drove with him, sailed with him, walked in the moonlight and made much of him in mere wanton mischief? What right had she to be so pretty and so—without heart or sensibility? A Southern girl with the word love on a young man's lips would have become a Circe of seductive wooing until the tale were told, even though she could not give her heart in return.
"I—I am going to-morrow, you know, and—" Then he almost laughed himself, for the droll inconsequence of this intelligence, after what had passed, touched even his small sense of humor. "O Olympia, I mean that I shall be far away: that I shall not see you after to-morrow. Won't you say something to encourage me—to give me heart for the future?"
"Let me see," and she leaned on her elbow musingly, as if construing his words literally, and quite unaware of the tender intent of his prayer. "It ought to be a line to go on your sword—there's where you have the advantage of poor Jack, he has only a musket. But, no, you being a Southerner, have a coat of arms, and the line must go on that. I used to know plenty of stirring phrases suitable to young men setting out for the wars. Perhaps you know them, too; they are to be found in the copy-books. 'The pen is mightier than the sword' wouldn't do, would it? Pens are only fit for poets and men of peace? We should have something brief and epigrammatic. 'That hour is regal when the sentinel mounts on guard.' There is sublimity in that, but you won't go on guard, being an officer.
'No blood-stained woes in mankind's story
Should daunt the heart that's set on glory.'
"That's too trivial—the sort of doggerel for newspaper poets' corners rather than a warrior's shield.
'Think on the perils that environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!'
"That's too much like a caution, and a soldier's motto should urge to daring. So we'll none of that. What do you say to the distich in honor of your great ancestor, Pocahontas's husband, John Smith: