“Yes, I should want to be a soldier! What can be more noble than to fight for one's country?”
Stephen gulped down something that rose in his throat; his breast seemed to swell to bursting with dull anguish, that it should be required of him to play so mean a part in this crisis.
“Why, Marian, I believe you want me to enlist!” he said at last in miserable perplexity.
“No, I don't, I haven't any right to want you to do anything,” she gave her head a scornful little toss. “Perhaps you wouldn't like to be a soldier.”
“You have no right to sneer at me!” said the boy, in a tone of bitter injury.
He was not even aware of her silliness; his one thought was that this was the way all women would feel, except only his Aunt Virginia, who seemed so resolutely opposed to all that his heart hungered for. His father and his uncle had been brave men! Every one would expect something of him; and here he was doomed to stay at home and read law. Read law! Why, he would be the laughing stock of the town. In his quick unreasoning vanity he saw himself disgraced, an object of ridicule; how was he to hold up his head? He turned unsteadily to the girl at his side, forgetful of the momentary hurt she had given him.
“If I go, Marian, shall you forget me?” he asked.
“Are you going, are you really going?” she cried, resting her hand on his arm, and glancing into his face with smiling eyes.
“You'll not forget me,” he repeated, “we've been such good friends, I can't bear to think that you might be able to forget me; yet if I go—” He covered the hand she had rested on his arm with his own.
“Of course I shan't forget you, Stephen,” she murmured. “Why, how absurd of you to speak of that! I shall always remember you, I never forget my friends, never!”