"Because if you are you may be my brother sometime. Elise likes you a little, I think, and she thinks your hair would curl beautifully if you didn't crop it so close—but you will have to be a hero. You needn't fear Mr. Morgan. He failed to be a hero when he had the chance, and now his chance is gone. Nobody but a hero can interest Elise for keeps."
"When did Morgan have his chance?" asked Rutledge, amused at the mischief-maker's plain speaking.
"He went to Venezuela in papa's regiment, but never had a shot fired at him the whole time he was gone. That's what he did. Elise cannot love a man like that."
"Perhaps it was not his fault. He may have been detailed to such duties as kept him away from the shots."
"Yes, I think he says he was; but what of that? He wasn't in the fighting, and that's what it takes to make a hero. Oh, I wish I were a man. I would ride a horse and hunt lions and tigers, and I would have gone to the war in Venezuela and nobody's orders would have kept me from the firing-line—I believe that's what papa calls it—the place where all the fun and danger is. When papa talks about it I can hear my heart beat. Elise says she wouldn't be a man for anything; but I've heard her say that she could love a man if he was a man—brave and strong—you know—a man who did things. I would prefer to do the things myself. I wouldn't love any man I ever saw—unless he was just like papa. What regiment were you in, Mr. Rutledge?"
"I wasn't in any regiment," said Rutledge meekly.
"What! Didn't you volunteer?" asked Helen in surprise.
"I did not volunteer"—a trifle defiantly.
"Why?" Helen demanded scornfully. "If I had a brother and he had failed to volunteer I would never have spoken to him again! I thought all South Carolinians were fighters."
"I had other things to attend to," said Rutledge shortly. "Where is Miss Phillips this afternoon?"