In fact his mind had become so evenly adjusted to hers, his happiness
had been so quietly perfect, he had lost sight of the fact that he was
pressing his attentions at all.
The day she was suddenly called South and he said good-by with her brown
eyes looking so frankly into his he was brought sharply up against the
fact that he was in love.
When he took her warm hand in his to press it for the last time, he felt
an almost resistless impulse to bend and kiss her. From that moment he
realized that he was in love--madly, hopelessly, desperately.
He had left the car and hurried back to his post in the State
Department, his heart beating like a trip hammer. It was a novel
experience. He had never taken girls seriously before. The last girl on
earth he had ever meant to take seriously was this slip of a Southern
enthusiast. For a moment he was furious at the certainty of his abject
surrender. He lifted his eyes to the big columns of the Confederate
Capitol and laughed:
"Come, come, man--common sense--this is a joke! Forget it all. To your
work--your country calls!"
Somehow the country refused to issue but one call--the old eternal cry
of love. Wherever he turned, Jennie's brown eyes were smiling into his.
He looked at the Confederate Capitol to inspire him to deeds of daring
and all he could remember was that she was a glorious little rebel with
three brothers fighting for the flag that floated there.
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