"You're such a comfort, Jack," she sighed restfully, as they strolled in the afternoon sunshine to the bank of the little noisy stream, that by courtesy was called a river.
"I get tired and fretted, and when you come it's just like putting on a pair of old shoes after you've been wearing new ones."
Terrence laughed. He was used to Jean's queer similes, and loved her all the more for her unexpectedness.
"You take things too seriously, dear, but just the same I was very proud of you this afternoon. You scattered the enemy's forces neatly." He laughed again, but this time there was no mirth in his face. "I was glad, too, Jean, because it makes it easier to speak of something I've been thinking about for the last two weeks."
For an instant her heart stood still. She did not need to be told what had made him unlike his sunny self for the past few days. He turned his face away that he might not see the trouble in hers. She began to understand.
After a little he spoke again. "Dear little woman," he said softly, "it all rests with you. It is for you to decide—not me. If you feel that my first duty is to you, you have only to say the word; if you feel that, dearly as I love you, there is something beyond that, you—you need not speak at all."
They were sitting on the bank of the stream now, and the late afternoon light was playing upon its rippling surface, while a glory of crimson and gold touched each rock and tree.
Half-way up the hill beyond, was a tiny two-story house in process of construction. On the crest, where the sun might shine on it longest, the flag seemed beckoning to them both. They felt its meaning.
"Jean," said Jack again, and his lips trembled as they said the little name, "is the roof of our home coming between us and our flag?"
"If it did," she answered slowly, "it could only be a house—not a home."