I did not want to tell him. But I could not run away. And those bright eyes were going over my face and reading in it, I knew. I did not know what they read. I feared. He waited, smiling a little as he looked.
"I ought not to be self-willed, - about anything," - I said at last.
"No, I suppose not. What has got a grip of your heart then,
Daisy?"
"I am unwilling to see you lying here," I said. It was said with great force upon myself, under the stress of necessity.
"And unwilling that I should get any but one sort of discharge," - he added.
"You do not fear it," I said, hastily.
"I fear nothing. But a soldier, Daisy, - a soldier ought to be ready for orders; and he must not choose. He does not know where the service will call for him. He knows his Captain does know."
I stood still, slowly fanning Mr. Thorold; my self-control could go no further than to keep, me outwardly quiet.
"You used to be a soldier," he said gently, after a pause. "You are yet. Not ready for orders, Daisy?"
"Christian - you know, -" I stammered forth.