Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/182

 the English pilot had made Gerry think of her as one of those protecting—not precisely a combatant, perhaps, but certainly no mere non-combatant.

Of course the English pilot had not mentioned Cynthia Gail; but Gerry knew that if American girls were proving themselves that morning, Cynthia Gail was one of them. He had been able, in vivid moments, to see Agnes Ertyle; for he knew exactly what she would be doing; but his imagination had failed to bring before him Cynthia Gail. In the subconscious considerations which through the violence of his physical actions dwelt on such ideas, this failure had seemed proof that Agnes Ertyle alone stirred the deepest within him; but now those visions of the unseen which came quite unbidden and which he could not control showed him again and again the smooth-skinned, well-formed face with the blue, brave eyes under thoughtful brows, and the slender, rounded figure of the girl whom he knew as Cynthia Gail. And whereas previously he had merely included her among the many in peril, now dismay for her particularly throbbed through him.

Her words when they last were together—"A score or so of you felt you had to do the fighting for a hundred million of us; but you haven't now, for we're coming; a good many of us are here"—no longer seemed a mere appeal to him to spare himself; it told him that she was among those on the ground endeavoring to govern the fate of this day.

He sighted, before and below, a road where German guns were being rushed forward; dove down upon them, leading his flight again and bombed the guns, machine