“Can I come in, Eleanor?” he called.
The blue eyes gave him welcome. He sat on the lower step and, leaning against the post, looked up at the girl.
“Eleanor, I am off to the war!”
The smile froze on the sweet lips, the slender, strong hands clenched, but the girl’s voice was quiet as she answered:
“I hardly understand, Jack.”
Then he eagerly explained how his cousins in England, with the same strain of Irish blood in their veins, were fighting—nay, some dying—on the battlefields in France, and call had come to him, and he must go.
He stood tall and straight, his gray eyes flashing—those eyes she so loved—his head thrown back. Ah! The girl felt he would lead his men even unto death. He gave his warm, merry smile; surely she would understand.
“Sit down, Jack dear. Yes, I understand,” she smiled into those eager eyes; “but you do not understand. No, wait, please—you are an American, Jack, first, last, and all the time; and now soon, only too soon, your country might need all such men as you. You cannot desert your country now! You cannot, cannot, Jack, dear!”
And Jack understood.
How to tell Dennis, how to break the news to him; what was he to say?