"No," answered Ralph, "I want the trenches. I'm after the real thing. I don't want to order--I want to obey. I want the essence of battle, and I don't believe anybody but the man in the line ever gets it. Then, too, I've hung back all these months, stupid ass that I was. I want to begin at the bottom. All right if I can work up, but I want to work up by doing the thing." Dick understood. Thus he had felt in those first days before the hope of a part in the war had been destroyed. He recalled how there had been hours when he felt that nothing but the sight of his own red blood flowing would still the passion within him. Ralph was to have a chance to grapple with death and laugh in her face--the highest thing that came to men, he somehow felt; and he would never know it. That he had any more chance of winning Nancy than of being admitted into the army, he did not believe. She was bound somehow to Otto, of that he was sure. In the few months she had been at home he had seen scores of little things that made him think it. He always remembered with a pang the disappointment he thought he detected at their first meeting when she had asked for Otto, and her father had told her he was not in town. He recalled, too, how a few days later, when he was alone with her, she had told him of seeing Otto the day he returned; how he seemed depressed, how sorry she was, for he was her oldest, indeed almost her only, friend in Sabinsport. Dick felt as if she were sounding him. He gave no sign, only remarking that the war was sad business for those who had lived in Germany as Otto had and who had many friends there. She had never pursued it, but she spoke freely of his visits. He never felt sure that she sensed that hers was practically the only house in Sabinsport into which Otto now went. What could make her so interested but--caring? What could make Reuben Cowder look so grim when Otto was present or when his name was mentioned but his belief that she did care? Of one thing he was sure, he must give no sign and he gave none, though as the spring days went on and the question of our going into the war was settled and Sabinsport began to prepare to take up her part, the two were thrown more and more together. It would have been harder if there had not been so much to do, and if the town had not taken it so much for granted that whatever the question, it was Dick who must explain and counsel. CHAPTER IX