Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/316

306 "Well," he acknowledged diffidently, "I was thinking of it a little."

Mrs. Barton suddenly flung down her fork onto her plate.

"Oh," she burst out, "I just knew this horrid war was going to hit me. I've felt it from the start. Robert, are you going to go and enlist too?" she demanded with alarm.

Robert smiled indulgently at the little firebrand opposite him, then turned to Nathan.

"Nathan," he said, "your decision, if it actually is a decision, is a surprise to me. Of course I knew you'd be ready to do your part when the time came. But I should have supposed we would have talked over a thing of this sort."

"Perhaps I ought to have," Nathan replied. "I mean still to talk over the details with you. But the question of my getting into the scrap, somehow, somewhere—well, I couldn't see any reason for talking it over. I couldn't see any argument against it, not having any one dependent on me, you know, and"

"You're married!" flashed Mrs. Barton with heat.

"Yes, that's so," acknowledged Nathan; "but she is rather used not to having me about. And," he added, managing to smile a little, "I was thinking a uniform would add a little to my appearance, perhaps."

Strange he could keep on building air-castles on his dead hopes.

"Uniform! I wouldn't give a cent for fifty uniforms!" exclaimed Mrs. Barton. "It's a burning shame to keep that girl waiting for a uniform—after all this time! If that's your reason for enlisting, I don't think much of it!"