Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/153

 enough to shoot down afterwards. I'd rather have not, you know," he confessed.

"I know," Ruth said. "But we're going to kill them—kill men, men, and more men! We have to. I'll not be too soft, don't fear! I've been all this month among women—girls and children, too—from the departments they've overrun! Not that they've told me much which I didn't believe before; but—well, getting it direct is different."

"Yes."

He was thinking, she knew, of their initial encounter; was she so pleased and proud of the tardiness of America now?

"I found out a remarkable thing from some Belgians," she said, half in answer to this unspoken challenge. "They told me that after the Germans took complete possession of their country and forbade them to wear Belgian colors or even rosette symbols, they took to wearing American colors. We were neutral then; and the Germans didn't dare stop it; so they all wore, as their symbol of defiance, our flag!"

"That was when everyone thought always that we must come in," he rejoined. He was not thinking about what she was saying, but of her. "You've had more in your mind all along than just coming here to do relief work," he announced his thought aloud to her.

"Yes, I had."

"Can I ask what it is?"

"I can't tell you."

"But you've been doing some of it?"

"Some."