“No.”
“Wymett has come on at Embree’s call. Embree is behind his bid for The Guardian. He’d rather buy The Guardian than start his new paper. Quicker and cheaper. Farley’d rather have him buy The Guardian than start the new paper; only one competitor in the field instead of two. Wymett sees he has you going; but he is n’t certain. He borrows The Record’s columns to force your hand. And you want to run away and play soldier!”
“I’ve got to! I’ve got to!” cried Jeremy, beating the arms of his chair with violent hands. “And now you tell me I can’t.”
“Steady! I never said you could n’t play soldier.”
“My heart—”
“You’re a border-land case.”
Jeremy’s face lighted with hope.
“You can get in all right. I’ve passed cases like yours. But let me tell you what it means. It means that you’ll never see active service. It means they’ll make use of your brains somewhere, in a perfectly honorable, perfectly safe office job where the only gunpowder you can ever smell is by getting to leeward of the sunset gun. Mind you; you’ll get all the credit. You’ll go marching away in uniform with Committees handing out flowers and tears and embossed resolutions, and everybody will regard you as a hero, except perhaps me—and yourself. You’ve got to reckon it out with yourself whether you’ll put on uniform and shirk or stay home and fight.” Strangely enough, at this bald summons there stood forth in Jeremy’s working mind two incongruous figures, each summoning him to judgment; Marcia of the clear, instinctive courage, and Andrew Galpin. Were they ranged in opposition to each other? Or were they not, rather, united in impelling him to the simple and difficult course? More strangely still, it was the thought of Andrew Galpin which predominated at the last; Galpin who, facing disaster and the ruin of his dearest projects with an alternative clear and easy and not dishonorable, had made his choice of the hard path and the forlorn hope, without so much as a quiver of indecision.
“I stick” he had said.
Jeremy lifted his head. He rose and held out a hand as steady as a rock in farewell, to Dr. Summerfield who bestowed a passing and self-gratulatory thought upon the stimulant effect of psychologic suggestion properly administered. The physician took the hand.