"It's no use, Poole. I've fought and fought. Father helped me. And I
promised Con. And I thought that my love for Leila would make me
strong. But there's no use trying. I'll be beaten. It is in the
blood. I had an uncle who drank himself to death. And back of him
there was a grandfather."
They had been together for two days. Barry had agreed to Roger's plans
for a trip to the country, and now they were under the trees on the
banks of one of the little brackish rivers which flow into the
Chesapeake. They had fished a little in the early morning, then had
brought their boat in, for Barry had grown tired of the sport. He
wanted to talk about himself.
"It's no use," he said again; "it's in the blood."
Roger was propped against a tree, his hat off, his dark hair blown back
from his fine thin face.
"Our lives," he said, "are our own. Not what our ancestors make them."
"I don't believe it," Barry said, flatly. "I've fought a good fight,
no one can say that I haven't. And I've lost. After this do you
suppose that Mary will let me marry Leila? Do you suppose the General
will let me marry her?"
"Will you let yourself marry her?"
Barry's face flamed. "Then you think I'm not worthy?"
"It is what you think, Ballard, not what I think."
Barry pulled up a handful of grass and threw it away, pulled up another
handful and threw it away. Then he said, doggedly, "I'm going to marry
her, Poole; no one shall take her away from me."
"And you call that love?"
"Yes. I can't live without her."
Roger with his eyes on the dark water which slipped by the banks,
taking its shadows from the darkness of the thick branches which bent
above it said quietly, "Love to me has always seemed something bigger
than that--it has seemed as if love--great love took into consideration
first the welfare of the beloved."
There was a long silence, out of which Barry said tempestuously, "It
will break her heart if anything comes between us. I'm not saying that
because am a conceited donkey. But she is such a constant little
thing."
Roger nodded. "That's all the more reason why you've got to pull up
now, Ballard."
"But I've tried."
"I knew a man who tried--and won."