She said impulsively:
"You mean to go, Alfie?"
"If you approve."
She drew a deeper breath. Then the decision rested with her. If she burst into tears, if she flung herself into his arms, if she whispered to him, blushingly, the arguments which come pat to any woman's tongue, when her happiness is at stake, he would stay. The burden laid upon her seemed greater than she could bear. Her withers were wrung. In her perplexity she lurched here and there, staggeringly. She caught at straws.
"And if your mother disapproves?"
"Ah-h-h! Maybe she will."
"But, if she does—? Answer me, Alfie. I be hanging on your words."
He said heavily:
"I ain't one for argument. I only know this, dear, if I go, others will go, too. And the men are wanted, so Captain Lionel says. And if he says so, 'tis so. I feel as I ought to go, if you approve. When it comes to Mother, I'm weak-kneed. If I leave her out, Fancy, 'tis because I know what's tearing her, the thought of the graves in churchyard. 'Tain't in Mother as 'tis in you, to stand hand in hand with me, and forget her dear self."
Desperately, she clutched at another straw.