Dangerous Days

There was a little pause. Delight was thinking desperately of something

to say.

"But you didn't come to talk about me, did you?"

"Partly. And partly about myself. I want to do something, Mrs.

Valentine. I can drive a car, but not very well. I don't know a thing

about the engine. And I can nurse a little. I like nursing."

Audrey studied her face. It seemed to her sad beyond words that this

young girl, who should have had only happiness, was facing the horrors

of what would probably be a long war. It was the young who paid the

price of war, in death, in empty years. Already the careless gayety of

their lives was gone. For the dream futures they had planned they had

now to substitute long waiting; for happiness, service.

"The Red Cross is going to send canteen workers to France. You might do

that."

"If I only could! But I can't leave mother. Not entirely. Father is

going. He wants to go and fight, but I'm afraid they won't take him.

He'll go as a chaplain, anyhow. But he's perfectly helpless, you know.

Mother says she is going to tie his overshoes around his neck."

"I'll see if I can think of something for you, Delight. There's one

thing in my mind. There are to be little houses built in all the new

training-camps for officers, and they are to be managed by women. They

are to serve food--sandwiches and coffee, I think. They may be even more

pretentious. I don't know, but I'll find out."

"I'll do anything," said Delight, and got up. It was then that Audrey

realized that there was something more to the visit than had appeared,

for Delight, ready to go, hesitated.

"There is something else, Mrs. Valentine," she said, rather slowly.

"What would you do if a young man wanted to go into the service, and

somebody held him back?"

"His own people?"

"His mother. And--a girl."

"I would think the army is well off without him."

Delight flushed painfully.

"Perhaps," she admitted. "But is it right just to let it go at that?

If you like people, it seems wrong just to stand by and let others ruin

their lives for them."

"Only very weak men let women ruin their lives."

But already she began to understand the situation.

"There's a weakness that is only a sort of habit. It may come from not

wanting to hurt somebody." Delight was pulling nervously at her gloves.

"And there is this to be said, too. If there is what you call weakness,

wouldn't the army be good for it? It makes men, some times, doesn't it?"