With all the will his calamity had left him he strove to hold himself in. Her voice was music, her nearness magical; what she offered him now was beyond his wildest hopes. Once he had jumped at her too soon, in a moment of delirium; but he had always known, by force of the strong temperament, that was such a torment to him now, that she was the only woman in the world he would ever really care for.
“I see just the kind of helper you need.” Divinely practical, yet divinely modern! “I could mug up my drawing in a week or two and I should never know enough to want to interfere with anything that mattered.”
He held himself tensely like one who sees a precipice yawning under his feet. “America coming in, do you think?” It was a heroic change of voice. “I wish she would. I’m afraid it may be a draw without her.”
Sally, with all her ribbons and her uniform, could rise to no immediate interest in America.
“Our poor lads have had an awful grueling on the Somme. Seven hundred thousand casualties and nothing to show for it so far.”
“I know.” The sightless eyes were lacerating her. “They ought to help us. It’s their war as much as it’s ours.”
“We can’t blame them for staying out. Can’t blame anybody for staying out. But we’ll never get the right peace unless they help us.”
“Some people think they’d not make much difference.”
“My God!” It was the vehemence she used not to like. “They’d simply tip the scale. Have you ever been there?”