"Perhaps you can trust him to make that point clear himself," said Katie rather dryly.
"The coward. The cur."
She turned upon him hotly. "Look here, Wayne, I don't know why you're so sure you have a right to say that!"
"I'd like to know why I haven't! Attacked an officer without the slightest provocation whatsoever! Some kind of a hot-headed taking sides with a deserter, I believe it was. I suppose this remarkable play is to be a glorification of desertion," he laughed.
"Well," said Katie with an unsteady laugh, "perhaps there are worse things to glorify than desertion."
He stared at her. "Come now, Katie, you know better than that."
But Katie was looking at him strangely. "Wayne," she said quietly, "you're a deserter, yourself."
He flushed, but after an instant laughed. "Really, Katie, you have a positive genius for saying preposterous things."
"In which there may occasionally lurk a little truth. You are deserting. Why aren't you?"
"I call that about as close to rot as an intelligent person could come," he replied hotly. "I'm resigning my commission. It's perfectly regular."