horribleness of war taught her to keep the first feeling from breaking
out, but with other people it wouldn't; and even if war didn't break
out right then, it would always be ready to, all over the country, and
sometime it would, though she was goin' to do her share to fight it,
herself, as long as she could stand. She asked me wouldn't I be one of
the ones to help her."

He paused, and after a moment Fred asked, "Well? What did you say to
that?"

"Nothin'. I started to, but--"

Again Fred thought it tactful to turn and look out the window, while the
agitation of his shoulders betrayed him.

"Go on and laugh! Well, so we stayed there quite a while, but before we
left she got kind of more like everyday, you know, the way people do. It
was half-past nine when we walked back in town, and I was commencin'
to feel kind of hungry, so I asked her if she wasn't, and she sort of
laughed and seemed to be ashamed of it, as if it were a disgrace or
something, but she said she guessed she was; so I left her by that hedge
of lilacs near the observatory and went on over to the 'Teria and the
fruit store, and got some stuffed eggs and olives and half-a-dozen
peanut butter sandwiches and a box o' strawberries--kind of girl-food,
you know--and went on back there, and we ate the stuff up. So then she
said she was afraid she'd taken me away from my dinner and made me a lot
of trouble, and so on, and she was sorry, and she told me good-night--"

"What did you say then?"