Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/156

 "It's not that I like it," she said. "It's more that I can't bear to see anything that's near to me suffer undeservedly. I hate the thought of Arturo being dealt with so unfairly. It—it Oh, I think it must be because my own father was a soldier himself!"

"I rather imagine I know the feeling," McKinnon told her. "I think I've carried the same fighting madness in my own blood for quite a number of years."

"But you're a man, and you're still young," she murmured, looking up at him a little sorrowfully, wondering at the touch of bitterness that had crept into his voice. "You do it from choice; I must do it from necessity. You can glory in it—it's unselfishness with you; it's the spirit of adventure. With me it's only selfishness—it's only fighting for my own."

"But isn't that enough?" asked McKinnon comprehendingly as he took her hand and turned away toward the door.

He could imagine nothing less militant and predaceous than that soft and birdlike warmth which lay for a moment between his fingers.