But ever since the idea of leaving the army had come to him,
Mary Cahill and the army had become interchangeable and had grown to
mean one and the same thing. He fought against this condition of mind
fiercely. He had determined that without active service the army was
intolerable; but that without Mary Cahill civil life would also prove
intolerable, he assured himself did not at all follow. He had laughed
at the idea. He had even argued it out sensibly. Was it reasonable to
suppose, he asked himself, that after circling the great globe three
times he should find the one girl on it who alone could make him
happy, sitting behind a post-trader's counter on the open prairie?
His interest in Miss Cahill was the result of propinquity, that was
all. It was due to the fact that there was no one else at hand,
because he was sorry for her loneliness, because her absurd social
ostracism had touched his sympathy. How long after he reached New
York would he remember the little comrade with the brave, boyish eyes
set in the delicate, feminine head, with its great waves of gorgeous
hair? It would not be long, he guessed. He might remember the way she
rode her pony, how she swung from her Mexican saddle and caught up a
gauntlet from the ground.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30