American fiction -- 20th century; Bildungsromans; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
“No,” said Ramsey. “I never was much of a--” He paused, fearing that he
might be repeating himself, and too hastily amended his intention. “I
never liked any girl enough to go and call on her.”
“Ramsey Milholland!” she cried. “Why, when we were in school half the
room used to be talking about how you and that pretty Milla--”
“No, no!” Ramsey protested, again too hurriedly. “I never called on her.
We just went walking.”
A moment later his colour suddenly became fiery. “I don't mean--I
mean--” he stammered. “It was walking, of course--I mean we did go out
walking but it wasn't walking like--like this.” He concluded with a fit
of coughing which seemed to rack him.
Dora threw back her head and laughed delightfully. “Don't you
apologize!” she said. “_I_ didn't when I said it seemed to me that we've
gone walking so often, when in reality it's only four or five times
altogether. I think I can explain, though: I think it came partly from
a feeling I have that I can rely on you--that you're a good, solid,
reliable sort of person. I remember from the time we were little
children, you always had a sort of worried, honest look in school;
and you used to make a dent in your forehead--you meant it for a
frown--whenever I caught your eye. You hated me so honestly, and you
were so honestly afraid I wouldn't see it!”
“Oh, no--no--”
“Oh, yes--yes!” she laughed, then grew serious. “My feeling about
you--that you were a person to be relied on, I mean--I think it began
that evening in our freshman year, after the _Lusitania_, when I stopped
you on campus and you went with me, and I couldn't help crying, and you
were so nice and quiet. I hardly realized then that it was the first
time we'd ever really talked together--of course _I_ did all the
talking!--and yet we'd known each other so many years. I thought of it
afterward. But what gave me such a different view of you, I'd always
thought you were one of that truculent sort of boys, always just
bursting for a fight; but you showed me you'd really never had a fight
in your life and hated fighting, and that you sympathized with my
feeling about war.” She stopped speaking to draw in her breath with a
sharp sigh. “Ah, don't you remember what I've told you all along? How
it keeps coming closer and closer--and now it's almost here! Isn't it
_unthinkable?_ And what can we do to stop it, we poor few who feel that
we _must_ stop it?”
“Well--” Ramsey began uncomfortably. “Of course I--I--”
“You can't do much,” she said. “I know. None of us can. What can any
little group do? There are so few of us among the undergraduates--and
only one in the whole faculty. All the rest are for war. But we mustn't
give up; we must never feel afterward that we left anything undone; we
must fight to the last breath!”
“'Fight'?” he repeated wonderingly, then chuckled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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