The hands, that when she talked seemed to him like swallows darting and
flashing in the sunlight, clutched his sleeve. The fingers, that he
would rather kiss than the lips of any other woman that ever lived,
clung to his arm. Their clasp reminded him of that of a drowning child
he had once lifted from the surf.

"If you should die," whispered Miss Armitage. "What would I do. What
would I do!"

"But my dearest," cried the young man. "My dearest _one_! I've _got_ to
go. It's our own war. Everybody else will go," he pleaded. "Every man
you know, and they're going to fight, too. I'm going only to look on.
That's bad enough, isn't it, without sitting at home? You should be
sorry I'm not going to fight."

"Sorry!" exclaimed the girl. "If you love me--"

"If I love you," shouted the young man. His voice suggested that he was
about to shake her. "How dare you?"

She abandoned that position and attacked from one more logical.

"But why punish me?" she protested. "Do _I_ want the war? Do _I_ want to
free Cuba? No! I want _you_, and if you go, you are the one who is sure
to be killed. You are so big--and so brave, and you will be rushing in
wherever the fighting is, and then--then you will die." She raised her
eyes and looked at him as though seeing him from a great distance.
"And," she added fatefully, "I will die, too, or maybe I will have to
live, to live without you for years, for many miserable years."