“Steady,” a voice said in Barbara Meade’s ear, as a strong arm slipped across her shoulders, bracing her upright.
And so surprised was she by the voice and its intonation that she felt herself brought back to consciousness.
“Dick Thornton,” she began weakly, and then decided that in truth she must be taking leave of her senses, to have an image of Dick obtrude upon her at such a moment and in such a place.
Naturally curiosity forced her to turn around and so for the instant she forgot herself and her surroundings.
She saw a young man in a khaki uniform of a kind of olive green with a close-fitting cap and visor. But beneath the cap was a face which was like and yet unlike the face of the friend she remembered. This fellow’s[215] expression was grave, almost sad, the dark-brown eyes were no longer indifferent and mocking, the upright figure no longer inactive. Indeed, there was action and courage and vigor in every line of the figure and face.
Barbara stepped back a few paces.
“Dick Thornton,” she demanded, “have I lost my mind or what has happened? Aren’t you several thousand miles away in New York City, or Newport, where ever the place was you intended spending the summer? I simply can’t believe my own eyes.”
Dick slipped his arm inside Barbara Meade’s. For the time no one was noticing them; the scene about them was absorbing every attention.
“Just a moment, please, Barbara, I want to explain the situation to you,” Dick asked, and drew the girl away behind the shelter of one of the hospital wagons.
“Sit down for a moment,” he urged. “Dear me, Barbara, what have they been doing to you in the few weeks since we said good-by in good old New York? You are as white and tiny as a little tired ghost.”
[216]
But Barbara shook her head persuasively. “Please don’t talk about me,” she pleaded. “I must know what has occurred. What could have induced you to come over here where this terrible war is taking place, and what are you doing now you are here? You aren’t a soldier, are you?” And there was little in Barbara’s expression to suggest that she wished her friend to answer “Yes.”
Dick had also taken a seat on the ground alongside Barbara and now quite simply he reached over and took her hand inside his in a friendly strong grasp.
“I don’t know which question to answer first, but I’ll try and not make a long story. I want you to know and then I want you to tell Mill. I came over to this part of the country so as to be near you. But I haven’t wanted to see either of you until I found out whether I was going to amount to anything. If I wasn’t of use I was going on back home without making a fuss. You see, Barbara, I suppose your visit to us set me thinking. You had a kind way of suggesting, perhaps without[217] meaning it, that I was a pretty idle, good-for-nothing fellow, not worth my salt, let alone the amount of sugar my father was bestowing on me. Well, I pretended not to mind. Certainly I didn’t want a little thing like you to find out you had made an impression on me. Still, things you said rankled. Then you and old Mill went away. I couldn’t get either of you out of my mind. It seemed pretty rotten, me staying at home dancing the fox trot and you and Mill over here up against the Lord knows what. So I—I just cleared out and came along too. But there, I didn’t mean to talk so much. Whatever is the matter with you, Barbara? You look like you were going to keel over again, just as you did when you tumbled out of that car.”
The girl shook her head. “You can’t mean, Dick, that you have come over to enlist in this war because of what I said in New York? Oh, dear me, I thought I was unhappy enough. Now if anything happens to you your mother will have every right not to forgive me; besides, I shall never forgive myself.”
[218]
Barbara said the last few words under her breath. Although hearing them perfectly, Dick Thornton only smiled.
“Oh, I wouldn’t take matters as seriously as that,” he returned. “I didn’t mean to make you responsible for my proceedings. I only meant you waked me up and then, please heaven, I did the rest myself. See here, Barbara, after all I am a man, or at least made in the image of one. And I want to tell you frankly that I’ve gone into this terrible war game for two reasons. I don’t suppose many people do things in this world from unmixed motives. I want to help the Allies; I think they are right and so they have got to win. Then I thought I’d like to prove that I had some of the real stuff in me and wasn’t just the little son of a big man. Then, well, here are you and Mill. I’m not a whole lot of use, but I like being around if anything should go wrong. We didn’t know each other very long, Barbara, but I’m frank to confess I like you. You seem to me the bravest, most go-ahead girl I ever met, and I am proud to know[219] you. I believe we were meant to be friends. Just see how we have been calling each other by our first names as if we had been doing it always. Funny how we left our titles behind us in New York.”
Dick was talking on at random, trying to persuade his companion to a little more cheerfulness. Surely they were meeting again in gruesome surroundings. Yet one must not meet even life’s worst tragedies without the courage of occasional laughter.
“But I’m not brave, or any of the things you are kind enough to think me; I’m not even deserving of your friendship, let alone your praise,” the girl answered meekly. Her old sparkle and fire appeared gone. Dick Thornton was first amazed and then angry. What had they been doing to his little friend to make her so changed in a few weeks? He said nothing, however, only waited for her to go on.
But Barbara did not continue a............