"I--You mustn't talk that way to me, Clara. When I'm called to serve my country, I'm the first one that will want to go. I've given more money already than I can afford to help the boys who are at the front. So far as I'm concerned, enlisting like this with--with you--around, would be the happiest thing ever happened to me, but--well, you see for yourself." "You mean, then, you won't?" "I mean, Clara, I can't." She was immediately level of tone again and pushed back, placing her folded napkin beside her place, patting it down. "Well, then, Sam, I'm done." "'Done,' Clara?" "Yep. That lets me out. I've given you every chance to make this thing possible. Your mother is no better and no different than thousands and thousands of other mothers who are giving their sons, only, she is better off than most, because she's provided for. It's all right for a fellow's mother to come first, maybe, but if his wife isn't even to come second or third or tenth, then it's about time to call quits. I haven't made up my mind to this in a day. I'm done." "Clara--" "Ed has asked me. I don't pretend he's my ideal, but he's more concerned about my future than he is about anybody else's. If I'm ready to leave with him on that twelve-o'clock train for Boston to-morrow, where he's going to be put in the clerical corps at Camp Usonis, we'll be married there to-morrow night, and I'll settle down somewhere near camp as long as I can. He's got a good nest-egg if--God forbid!--anything should happen. That's the whole thing in a nutshell." "My God! Clara, this is awful! Eddie Leonard he's not your kind; he--" "I've given you first chance, Sam. That proves how you stand with me. A one! Ace high! First! Nobody can ever take your place with me. Don't be a boob coming and going, Sam; you're one now not to see things and you'll be another one spelled backward if you don't help yourself to your chance when it comes. You've got your life in front of you, and your mother's got hers in back of her. Now choose." "My God! Clara, this is--terrible! Why--I'd rather be a thousand boobs than take my mother's heart and tear it to pieces." "You won't?" "I can't." "Don't say that, Sam. Go home and--sleep on it. Think it over. Please! Come to your senses, honey. Telephone me at eleven to keep me from catching that twelve-o'clock train. Don't let me take it with Eddie. Think it over, Sam. Honey--our--future--don't throw it away! Don't let me take that twelve-o'clock train!" There were tears streaming from her eyes, and her lips, so carefully firm, were beginning to tremble. "You can't blame a girl, Sam, for wanting to provide for her future. Can you, Sam? Think it over. Please! I'll be praying when eleven o'clock comes to-morrow morning for you to telephone me. Please, Sam--think!" He dropped his face low, lower toward the table, trembling under the red wave that surged over him and up into the roots of his hair. "I'll think it over, Clara--my girl--my own girl!"