But to get ready now.  To face the thing squarely, saying, “I may not come back—­there are, indeed, a thousand chances that I shall not come.”  Lacking those fifty years in which to grow towards the thought of dissolution, what ought one to do?  Should a man make himself fit in some special fashion?

There was, too, the thought of those whom he might leave behind.  Of Jean—­his wife—­whom he would leave.  She would break her heart—­at first.  And then—?  Would she remember?  Would she forget?  Would he and those millions of others who had gone down in battle become dim memories—­pale shadows against the vivid background of the hurrying world?

He felt that he could not, must not speak of these things to Jean.  So he talked of them to Emily.

“If anything should happen to me,” he said, “I couldn’t, of course, expect that Jean would go on—­caring—.  And if there should ever be anyone else—­I—­I should want her to be happy.”

“Don’t try to be magnanimous,” Miss Emily advised.  “You are human, and it isn’t in the heart of man to want the woman he loves ever to turn to another.  Let the years take care of that.  But you can be very sure of one thing—­that no one will ever take your place with Jean.”

“But she may marry.”

“Why should you torture yourself with that?  You have given her something that no one else can ever give—­the wonder and rapture of first love.  And the heroes of a war like this will be in a very special manner set apart!  ’A glorious company, the flower of men, to serve as models for the mighty world!’”

She laid her hand on his shoulder.  “You must think now only of love and life and of coming back to Jean.”

He reached up his hand and caught hers in a warm clasp.  “Do you know you are the nearest, thing to a mother that I’ve known since I lost mine?”

He spoke, too, rather awkwardly, of the feeling about—­getting ready.

“I have always thought that if I tried to live straight—­I’ve thought, too, that it wouldn’t come until I was old—­that I should have plenty of time—­and that by then, I should be more—­spiritual.”

“You will never be more spiritual than you are at this moment.  Youth is nearer Heaven than age.  I have always thought that.  As we grow old—­we are stricken by—­fear—­of poverty, of disease—­of death.  It is youth which has faith and hope.”

Before he left her, he gave her a sacred charge.  “If anything happens, I know what you’ll be to—­Jean—­and I can’t tell you what a help you’ve been this morning.”

She was thrilled by that.  And after he left her she thought much about him.  Of what it would have meant to her to have a son like that.

Women had said to her, “You should be glad that you have no boy to send—.”  But she was not glad.  Were they mad, these mothers, to want to hold their boys back?  Had the days of peace held no dangers that they should be so afraid for them now?