Page:War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy, John Luther Long, 1913.djvu/291

THE LAST DAY was anything on earth or in heaven could make me forget this and these and this—"

He puts his hands through her hair, touches her eyes, and kisses her. But it was plain to see that his thoughts were elsewhere.

"Isn't it strange," he goes on, "that I never thought of it till now! I really have had no convictions, rebel or Union, till now. It's good—oh, 'It's sweet and glorious for one's country to die.' That's a Latin quotation," he laughs at me.

I didn't know it then, but I know it now:

"O, carior et gloria est pro patria mori."

Evelyn knew it and found it for us.

"Evelyn," says Dave, sitting half on the arm of her chair and half on her, "something inside, here, is drawing me to the army. I know now what has kept the ranks full notwithstanding the pine boxes we see at the station so often now. They had the good fortune to feel when they enlisted as I do to-night. Don't you think I'd better go, dear? Don't you want to send me? Don't you want a soldier?" 275