A Charmed Life | Page 3

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Prepared by Don Lainson

A CHARMED LIFE
She loved him so, that when he went away to a little war in which his
country was interested she could not understand, nor quite forgive.
As the correspondent of a newspaper, Chesterton had looked on at
other wars; when the yellow races met, when the infidel Turk spanked
the Christian Greek; and one he had watched from inside a British
square, where he was greatly alarmed lest he should be trampled upon
by terrified camels. This had happened before he and she had met.
After they met, she told him that what chances he had chosen to take
before he came into her life fell outside of her jurisdiction. But now
that his life belonged to her, this talk of his standing up to be shot at
was wicked. It was worse than wicked; it was absurd.
When the Maine sank in Havana harbor and the word "war" was
appearing hourly in hysterical extras, Miss Armitage explained her
position.
"You mustn't think," she said, "that I am one of those silly girls who
would beg you not to go to war."
At the moment of speaking her cheek happened to be resting against his,
and his arm was about her, so he humbly bent his head and kissed her,
and whispered very proudly and softly, "No, dearest."
At which she withdrew from him frowning.
"No! I'm not a bit like those girls," she proclaimed. "I merely tell you
YOU CAN'T GO! My gracious!" she cried, helplessly. She knew the
words fell short of expressing her distress, but her education had not
supplied her with exclamations of greater violence.
"My goodness!" she cried. "How can you frighten me so? It's not like
you," she reproached him. "You are so unselfish, so noble. You are
always thinking of other people. How can you talk of going to war--to
be killed--to me? And now, now that you have made me love you so?"
The hands, that when she talked seemed to him like swallows darting
and flashing in the sunlight, clutched his sleeve. The fingers, that he
would rather kiss than the lips of any other woman that ever lived,
clung to his arm. Their clasp reminded him of that of a drowning child
he had once lifted from the surf.

"If you should die," whispered Miss Armitage. "What would I do. What
would I do!"
"But my dearest," cried the young man. "My dearest ONE! I've GOT to
go. It's our own war. Everybody else will go," he pleaded. "Every man
you know, and they're going to fight, too. I'm going only to look on.
That's bad enough, isn't it, without sitting at home? You should be
sorry I'm not going to fight."
"Sorry!" exclaimed the girl. "If you love me--"
"If I love you," shouted the young