Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/202

 so weakened that I broke down and cried. I was a private then. I covered his face, and got up strong enough to assault two other privates who had found my snivelling funny. One of them went to the field hospital, and I went under arrest when I'd finished with the other. You ought to know, Miss Caroline, that the sight of thousands of your other dead never moved me to any merriment. I tried to be a good soldier, but I felt the death pains of every fallen man I saw. I didn't stop to note the color of his uniform. Miss Caroline—"

I waited until I had made her look at me.

"The war is over, you know. Suppose you forget me as a soldier and take me as a man. Really, I believe we ought to know each other better."

Clem had once found occasion to say, "When Miss Cahline tek th' notion to shine huh eyes up, she sho' is a highly illuminous puhsonality."

I saw then what he meant, for Miss Caroline had "shined" her eyes, and they flooded me with a distracting medley of lights. I thought she struggled very uncertainly with herself. Her eyes shifted from my face to the empty sleeve. Twice before that evening—I remembered it had been when she spoke so enigmatically of the lumber industry—her eyes had rested there briefly, discreetly, but in all sympathy. Now the look was different. It wavered. At one instant I seemed to read regret that I had come off so well—her eyes flickered suggestively to my remaining arm.