Arm in arm, they retraced their steps through the gardens of the Luxembourg. Other couples were walking similarly, singing, laughing. Through the gathering gray, lights were twinkling on the boulevard. They walked in silence. There were tears on her lashes.
XI
Hamilton did not see Dorothy again before leaving France, although he sent her a short note from camp announcing the good news. For on their return to their regiment, both Hamilton and McCall had found orders promoting them to captaincies. In reply Dorothy sent a note of congratulation.
To Margaret, Hamilton sent a longer letter and another to his parents. He was beginning to feel ashamed of his display of emotion toward Dorothy—ashamed and perplexed. He meant to marry Margaret as soon as he returned to America and he knew that the first principle of any system of ethics was fidelity—fidelity to one’s country, to one’s church, to the woman of one’s choice. Dorothy merely had interested him. True he had much for which he would always be deeply grateful to her. Yet there could be nothing more than friendship between them.
He did not even know Dorothy—had spoken to her intimately only twice. He had no idea whether her peculiar fascination for him would survive more frequent meetings, whether their brief friendship was anything more than a passing fancy. Why then had he kissed her?—if he really had kissed her. Sometimes it seemed like part of a dream.
Still, other men did it. One of the majors in the regiment, a married man, was always bragging about his exploits, not merely kissing episodes. Yet he continually referred to “the wife and kiddies” and expressed his longing for them. There might be an exception here and there, but practically every officer in the regiment practiced and preached the creed: “What they don’t know”—“they” referring to wives, fiancées and sweethearts—“won’t hurt ’em.” In civil life, Hamilton recalled, it had been the same.
Margaret was so obviously the woman intended for him. She had beauty, youth, the social graces and an assured social position. She would make an ideal wife and mother and grace any home. They had always moved in the same social circles; his friends were her friends. Their social conventions were the same. There would be no barriers to break down, no lessons to learn.
But after all a man didn’t love that way. One didn’t reason about such things. He loved her—just because he loved her. And he really did love Margaret. He had loved her when he was still in knickerbockers. He had loved her when he was going to prep school. He had loved her all those years in Harvard and since then.
Yet, in spite of this, Hamilton wondered whether he would now be engaged if it had not been for the sentimentalism attendant on leaving America to fight and possibly to die. He wondered whether she would have come to camp at the time when he was most susceptible, if she had not thought it a duty. Sometimes one’s motives were very complex. She had come because she thought it her duty to give him the opportunity to ask for all that she could give—her promise to marry him. And knowing why she had come, he had proposed out of a sense of gallantry. If he had not asked her it would be equivalent to jilting her.
But what difference did that make? He would have proposed to her eventually, anyway. In the end he would marry her.