"Well, you've had a long row to hoe."

"And I know you've done this from the highest motives--"

"Oh, there won't be much pettifogging to do till this cruel war is--"

"And you haven't simply done it for my sake. I couldn't respect you if
you had."

"Well, then we'll say I haven't. A man that hasn't got his own respect
intact wants the respect of all the other people he can corner. But we
won't go into that. I'm in for the thing now, and we've got to face our
future. My idea is that this isn't going to be a very protracted
struggle; we shall just scare the enemy to death before it comes to a
fight at all. But we must provide for contingencies, Editha. If anything
happens to me--"

"Oh, George!" She clung to him, sobbing.

"I don't want you to feel foolishly bound to my memory. I should hate
that, wherever I happened to be."

"I am yours, for time and eternity--time and eternity." She liked the
words; they satisfied her famine for phrases.

"Well, say eternity; that's all right; but time's another thing; and I'm
talking about time. But there is something! My mother! If anything
happens--"

She winced, and he laughed. "You're not the bold soldier-girl of