Where the Souls of Men are Calling Part 2

"I wonder," she said, turning toward the flower beds, "if the tulips will be in bloom soon! I'd so love to see them again!"

He laughed tenderly, but persisted:

"Why did you run away?--why didn't you answer my letters?"

"Oh, those things happened two years ago, Jeb. Haven't you advanced at all?--do you always live in the past like a silly old man? You didn't write but three times, anyway!"

"Good Lord, how many times did you expect me to write without getting an answer?" he cried.

"Oh," she answered indifferently, "as many times as you thought it was worth doing. I might have answered the fourth; one can never tell about those things. Miss Sallie says you're getting ready to fight, Jeb. Are you thinking of going over to join the British or French?"

"Not for me," he laughed, disregarding, somewhat to her surprise, the subject of letters and answers. "They can peg along with their own sc.r.a.p; I'm getting in shape for this country, if it becomes involved!

You ought to see the hikes I take, Marian! Twelve miles in a forenoon--easy! And my shooting is really--look here!" He began fumbling in his pocket and brought out several paper targets which he unfolded and held before her. "What d'you think of that for three hundred yards!--five centers! Here's the four hundred!--look, Marian! Isn't it a peach? By Jove, if ever I get a crack at those Huns, there'll be a few less!"

From the targets, over which he was now bending in feverish interest, she glanced up at him without being observed, her face somewhat puzzled.

She felt extremely gratified that Jeb had made these perfect scores, and her spirit thrilled with his martial fervor; but, on the other hand, he had just been talking about a certain question which she had evaded two years ago by running away to take a hospital course in nursing, and it seemed to her that he was dismissing it rather abruptly. Yet she knew Jeb's temperament, as any girl will know a man with whom she has been a play-fellow since childhood; and, although hardly prepared for it just at this moment, she read aright that his love of self, his thirst for praise, had in no wise diminished. Had she been asked for a direct answer she could have told that his enthusiasm for target practice in the woods, where for hours he pretended to be shooting Germans, was vital to his abnormally active imagination; for Jeb, although a giant in strength and a G.o.d in grace, possessed the brow and eyes of an inveterate dreamer.

Formerly his dreams had run to adventure of a milder form, sometimes to verse, once or twice or thrice or more to love. He had, as a matter of fact, for short periods loved nearly all the girls in Hillsdale who were pretty enough, and clever enough; never becoming really serious--unless it was with her! But she had laughed at him then, sympathetically and sweetly, reminding him that they had grown up together, besides being each of them twenty-four.

Not that she believed these were serious obstacles, but at the time they served; for, if the strict truth be told, Marian understood Jeb too well to confess how much she cared. His exceptional charm, fascinating her beyond anything she had experienced, was, on the other hand, marred by his inordinate vanity. His extreme courtesy, urban manner and quick instinct for thoughtful attentions to old and young alike, she read truly as superficial, rather than sincere, kindnesses. The casual acquaintance would not have discovered this--but Marian had grown up with him! She _could_ love him, she had more than a hundred times told herself--G.o.d, yes! Alone in the nights when his warm bronze coloring of perfect health seemed near to her, she had admitted this. Yet by day she laughed at it; and laughed at Jeb. Thereupon Jeb had settled down in earnest to win her.

Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie had watched through a prayer-gla.s.s the beginning of that ardent affair. From their lofty place of vantage twenty-four and twenty-four might not have been quite suitable, but years could stand for naught against the tower of mental strength and character with which they knew Marian to be possessed. They would gladly have greeted her as one of themselves, one to mother Jeb, to see that he was warmly clothed and did not eat imprudently. He had always been a child to them! Many times, in the bygone days, Miss Sallie would hint at this ideal mating, till at last the daughter of Amos Strong had wrapped the little woman in her arms, saying sweetly that she preferred something in life besides "mothering an overgrown, selfish boy."

It had cost her something to say this, for in her heart she was just beginning to know how adoringly she could be these things and more to him. As a child she mothered him; at ten he bullied her; in their 'teens she had bossed and mothered him again! Love him? She admitted it through tears to her mirror--and yet, withal, she had understood him just a shade too well!

Then came the day--as such days will--when she was cornered, pinioned, made captive!--when she could no longer fight, and knew that surrender was but a matter of hours. Much of that night (she remembered every minute of it now!) she had lain awake watching her heart and her level judgment wage their last battle; and the next afternoon, an hour before he was to come, she quietly left for Baltimore, or New York--or it may have been Chicago--to take the course in nursing.

Her eyes now swept him with tenderness as the memory of that day came rushing back, but a shadow of disappointment crossed them as she saw that he was still looking, fascinated, at the proof of his skill. Was her return, after an absence of two years, so meaningless that he could be engrossed by a few sheets of inert paper while she stood within touch of him?

"You shoot very well, Jeb," she said, casually.

"Don't I though!" he cried. "See, Marian--here's the five hundred!"

"I should think," she said, glancing at it indifferently, "that you'd join the regular army."

"You bet I will, if the time ever comes when we've got to fight! I wouldn't ask for anything better! Gee, I wish we'd declare war to-morrow!"

"I rather think," she slowly replied, "that your wish is very near fulfillment, Jeb."

He turned quickly and stared at her.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, tensely.

Had her eyes been looking at him then she might have seen something in his drawn face and blanched cheeks that would have struck dismay into her very soul; but, as it was, she attributed the question purely and simply to his eagerness for service, and answered with a suggestion of sharpness that was not lost on him:

"Because there's a limit, Jeb, to the patience of a country, just as there is to the patience of men and women. Even the mildest of us reach the end of our endurance, sooner or later," she added, not knowing whether she wanted to laugh or be furious.

"Oh, come," he cried, squaring his shoulders. "I thought maybe you had some inside news from your father! Don't be a gloom, Marian! The war's three thousand miles away from us, and that's where it's going to stay--take my word for it!"

"But I thought you were crazy for it," she turned on him in surprise.

He shifted uneasily, but his voice rang strong and true as he answered:

"I am crazy for it! What d'you suppose I've been getting ready for all these months? But you leave wars and that sort of thing to us men! You haven't anything to do with 'em!"

"We have to nurse you in wars, Jeb, just as we do in times of peace,"

she laughed. "Really, I don't see how such big babies as some men I know can conduct a first cla.s.s war, anyhow!"

This was the old Marian again; lightly bantering, deliciously good to look upon. He moved close to her, and asked earnestly:

"Why did you run away from me?"

"I wanted to be a nurse," she answered.

"But why did you decide so quickly to be a nurse?"

She hesitated, then smiled:

"It was better than the other alternative."

"Now that you are a nurse, can't you accept the other alternative, too?

You know I want you just as much."

His voice, deep and resonant with a timbre that went to women's hearts, thrilled her delightfully. But she had not forgiven him for the paper target episode, wherein she had been pushed aside to make way for his skill. There were, moreover, plans that had been fermenting in her mind for many months--plans of which marriage should not be a part--and she answered him frankly:

"I really don't know at all, Jeb--I haven't had time to think. Of course, should our country get into this war, daddy has promised to let me go across at once; otherwise he insists that I can't. Still, if I go to France, you will, too, for that matter," she added brightly. Then the color flew to her cheeks. "Maybe when I saw you in uniform, Jeb, and realized that you--that we might neither of us get back, then I might--we might----"

She was looking down, unable to go farther without a.s.sistance; but he offered none, and they stood for several moments in absolute silence--for a quick spasm of fright had shot across his soul! The sublimity of her partial surrender, contingent only upon his transportation to a foreign battlefield, suddenly brought the war from three thousand miles away to his very door. But his next feeling was one of self-contempt, and squaring his shoulders with a jerk he said:

"I love your pluck! Then it's all settled."

"Oh, it isn't all settled by a great deal," she laughed; but, seeing his face, gasped in mock astonishment. "Heavens! Which is making you look so like a ghost--marriage or war?"

"They're quite synonymous," he replied, trying to match her banter. "May I speak to your ill.u.s.trious father?"

"That reminds me that I've an engagement with him right now," she exclaimed. "For the present, you may say good-bye to Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie for me."

With a pretty smile and toss of her head she swept him a little courtesy, then turned to the gate, but he called after her:

"Wait! I'll go with you--and show him my targets!"

She stopped, looking back as though she had not heard aright.

"Targets?" she asked, slightly arching her brows.

"Why, these, of course," he cried, drawing them again from his breast pocket. "I always hunt him up, or the Colonel, when I've made a cracker-jack score! It tickles 'em to death!"

He sprang to the gate and held it open for her to pa.s.s, apparently having forgotten everything but a desire to reap praise from one or the other of these old gentlemen; who in their turns, although separately, had never failed to be genially appreciative. The flavor of war, which filled the air as a restless spirit since diplomatic relations with Germany had come to an end--the numb fear with which he had been obsessed but a moment ago--were completely relegated to the limbo of forgetfulness as he now issued forth in search of praise wherewith to feed his vanity.