“—­in order to prove it for my country, for Lanny, and for you who have been so kind to me!” he concluded, another dry sob shaking him.

His chin dropped to his breast.  Even the spark in his eyes flickered out.  In the feeble lantern light that deepened the shadows of his face he was indescribably pitiful.  She could not look away from him.  There was something infectious about his misery that compelled her to feel with his nerves.

“Please,” he pleaded faintly—­“please leave me to myself.  I will tear out the telephone—­trust me—­only I wish to be alone.  I am uncertain—­I see only dark!”

He sank lower against the wall, his head fell forward, though not so far but he could see her from under his eyebrows.  She started as she had at the telephone, her breath came in the same sweep between her lips, and he looked for a passionate refusal; but it did not come.  She seemed in some spell of recollection or projection of thought.  A lustrous veil was over her eyes.  She was not looking at him or at anything in the range of her vision.  She shuddered and abruptly seized her left wrist with her right hand, as Lanstron had in the arbor, which had brought her cry of “I’m hurting you!” In this inscrutable attitude she was silent for a time.

“Let it remain—­it means so much to you!” she said wildly, and hurried past him still clasping her wrist.

He stared into the darkness that closed around her.  With the last sound of her footsteps he became another Gustave Feller, who, all mercurial vivacity, clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth with a “La, la, la!” as his hand shot out for the receiver.  There it paused, and still another idea animated still another Gustave Feller.

“Why not tear out the telephone—­why not?” he mused.  “Why didn’t I agree to her plan?  Why can’t I ever carry more than one thing in mind at once?  I forgot that we were at war.  I forget that I am already at the front.  I have skill!  God knows, I ought to have courage!  Volunteers who have both are always welcome in war.  Any number of gunners will be killed!  When an artillery colonel saw what I could do he would take me on without further questioning.  Then I should not be a spy, shuffling and whining, but bang-bang-bang on the target!”

In imagination he now had a gun.  His hand made a movement of manipulation, head bent, eye sighting.

“How do you like that?  You will like this one less!  And here’s another—­but, no, no!” He dropped against the wall again; he drove his nails into his palms in a sort of castigation.  “I am the same as a soldier now—­a soldier assigned to a definite duty for my flag.  I should break my word of honor—­a soldier’s word of honor!  No, not that again!”

He snatched down the receiver to make sure that temptation did not reappear in too luring a guise, and still another Gustave Feller was in the ascendant.

“Didn’t I say to trust it to me, Lanny?” he called merrily.  “Miss Galland consents!”