She looked at him startled. The affairs of the past week had been a great strain to her.
“I’m going to enlist,” he said.
CHAPTER XXX
“PRIVATE TRENT”
Before Trent went to enlist, he had an understanding with Mrs. Kinney as to the Kennebago camp. She was to live there and keep the house and gardens in good order until he returned. He had none of those premonitions of disaster which some who go to war have in abundance. Now that the danger of his arrest was gone and Kaufmann could never again entrap him he felt cheerful and lighthearted.
“I shall come back,” he told the old woman, “I feel it in my bones. But if not there will be enough for you to live on. I am seeing my lawyer about it this morning.”
On the way to the recruiting station, Trent met Weems.
“What branch are you going in?” he asked upon learning of Trent’s plans.
“Where I’m most needed,” Trent said cheerfully. “Infantry I guess.”
“You can get a commission right away,” Weems cried, a sudden thought striking him. “It was in last night’s papers. It said that men holding the B.S. degree were wanted and would be commissioned right off the reel. You’re a B.S. You wait a bit. Be an officer instead of an enlisted man. I bet the food’s better.”
He was a little piqued that Anthony Trent betrayed so little pleasure at the news. It so happened that Trent had given a deal of thought to this very thing. And his decision was to allow the chance of a commission to go. There was a strain of quixotism about him and a certain fineness of feeling which went to make this decision final. He loved his country in the quiet intense manner which does not show itself in the waving of flags. To outward appearances and to the unjudging mind, Weems would seem the more loyal of the two. Weems wore a flag in his buttonhole and shouted loudly his protestations and yet had made no sacrifice. Trent was to offer his life quietly, untheatrically. And he wanted to wear no officer’s uniform in case his arrest or discovery would bring reproach upon it. In his mind he could see headlines in the paper announcing that an officer of the United States Army was a notorious—he shuddered at the word—thief. And again, there was no certainty in his mind that he would give up his mode of life. In the beginning he had set out to obtain enough money to live in comfort. That, long ago, had been achieved. Then the jewels to adorn his lamp occupied his mind and now the game was in his blood. He wanted his camp for recreation but it would not satisfy wholly. When the war was over there would be Europe’s fertile fields to work upon.