He had an ambition. At worst, he could die for France. It is splendid to have something to die for. It makes life worth living.
He was so ecstatic in his first flight with his finished machine that he fell and broke one of its wings, also one of his own. Charity heard of his accident and called on him at his mother's house. He told her his plans.
“Too bad!” she sighed. “I'm not going abroad. Besides, I couldn't see you if I did.”
Then she told him what Cheever had said, but not how she had slapped. Jim was wild. He rose on his bad arm and fell back again, groaning:
“I'll kill him for that.”
Everybody is always going to kill everybody. Sometimes somebody does kill somebody. But Dyckman went over to the great majority. Charity begged him not to kill her husband, and to please her he promised not to.
Charity, having insured her husband's life, said: “And now, Jimmie old boy, I mustn't see you any more. Gossip has linked our names. We must unlink them. My husband and you will butcher each other if I'm not careful, so it's good-by for keeps, and God bless you, isn't it? Promise?”
“I'll promise anything, if you'll go on away and let me alone,” Jim groaned, his broken arm being quite sufficient trouble for him at the moment.
Charity laughed and went on away. She was deeply comforted by a promise which she knew he would not keep.
Dyckman himself, as soon as his broken bones ceased to shake his soul, groaned with loneliness and despaired of living without Charity—vowed in his sick misery that nobody could ever come between them. He could not, would not, live without her.