All for a Scrap of Paper: A Romance of the Present WarHocking, Joseph
General
All for a Scrap of Paper: A Romance of the Present War
Hocking, Joseph
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
"Dad's awfully fond of Captain Trevanion. I--I believe he's set his
mind on it."
"On what? On your marrying him!"
"Now, don't be jealous."
"I'm not jealous. How could I be when"--he held her to him, and kissed
her passionately--"when you've told me you love me."
"He'll be terribly mad when he knows at first. You see, he's always
looked on you as a--well, to put it mildly, a useless bookworm. And he
likes Hector Trevanion because, although he's a fool in many things,
he's a good soldier. He says he's very young for a captain, and with
his name and prospects--he'll be sure to be a major and afterwards a
colonel in a very short time, especially if a war breaks out. And--and
he's very ambitious for me. That's why I shall have to break it to him
by degrees. I shall begin by talking about your successes at Oxford,
and then I shall tell him that you are going to study for the Bar, as a
preliminary to going into Parliament. You are so clever, that you
won't be long before you are called to the Bar, will you?"
"I'll do it in record time," cried Bob. "There are a number of dinners
to eat, and certain examinations to pass; but I can manage them all
right. Don't think I'm conceited, Nancy; lots of the Professors told
me that the Bar exams. would be comparatively easy to me."
"Of course they will be," said Nancy confidently, "and meanwhile you
could be on the look out for a constituency, couldn't you?"
"Ye-es," replied Bob doubtfully. "Of course, I'd rather get called
first, but it could be managed. As it happens, I'm comfortably off,
and so I need not be dependent on my profession."
"Anyhow, we must say nothing about our--our----"
"Engagement," suggested Bob, as Nancy hesitated.
"Call it what you like, but we must keep it quiet for the present, and
be very circumspect and all that. So, as we've been here for quite a
long while, we had better be getting home."
Bob crumpled up the newspaper and threw it over the cliff.
"It's horrible, isn't it?" she said, as they watched it falling from
rock to rock until it fell into the sea; "but it can't affect us, can
it, Bob?"
"No," replied Bob, "it can't affect us. Nothing shall affect us,
Nancy, and nothing shall come between us. I feel as though I could do
anything now, and there's nothing I won't do to win a position worthy
of you. I'll work like a slave. I'll map out my programme to the
minutest detail, and I'll win all along the line. Edward VII was
called a peacemaker, and everybody admired him for it. But I'll do
more than he ever did. Just think of it! To be known throughout the
country, and throughout the world, as the man who made war on war, and
made it impossible. I'll give my life to it, Nancy--my whole life!"
"And where do I come in?" she asked, with mock sorrow.
"You! You come in everywhere. You are everything. You are my love,
my inspiration; but for you everything would be impossible. One more
kiss, Nancy, while no one can see us."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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