“I got awfully stuck on her, somehow,” confessed the man. “She was so sweet and so girlish—I did not say so for fear of scaring her off, but I used to write her pretty warm ones, I am afraid.”
“Why afraid?”
“Don’t you know?”
“How should I know?”
“Why, honey, you must see that I am head over heels in love with you. I oughtn’t to be telling it to you when I have written my little Godmother that as soon as the war is over I am going to find her and tell her the same thing. But, somehow, I was loving her only on paper and in my mind; but you—you—I love you with every bit of my heart, soul and body.” He caught her hand and all of the poor little slim blue letters slipped from the twine and scattered over the floor.
“Oh, the poor little letters!” she cried. “Is that all they mean to you?”
“Oh, honey, they meant a lot to me and still do, but they are just letters and you are—you.”
“But how about the letters you wrote Miss Polly Nelson? Are they just letters to her and nothing more? Don’t you think it is possible that she may have treasured your letters, especially the pretty warm ones, and be looking forward to the end of the war with the same eagerness that you have felt up to—say——”
“The minute I laid eyes on you. At first I used to dream maybe you were she, but I began to feel that she must be much—younger—somehow, than you. You are so capable, so mature in a way. She is little more than a child and you are a grown woman.”
“I am twenty-one—but the war ages one.”