Philip Dru: Administrator | Page 8

seemed dazed at the news, and for a long time would not talk of it even with Gloria. After a long silence one afternoon she softly asked, "What are you going to do, Philip?"
Jack Strawn, who was sitting near by, broke out--"Do! why there's no question about what he is going to do. Once an Army man always an Army man. He's going to live on the best the U.S.A. provides until his eyes are right. In the meantime Philip is going to take indefinite sick leave."
The girl only smiled at her brother's military point of view, and asked another question. "How will you occupy your time, Philip?"
Philip sat as if he had not heard them.
"Occupy his time!" exclaimed Jack, "getting well of course. Without having to obey orders or do anything but draw his checks, he can have the time of his life, there will be nothing to worry about."
"That's just it," slowly said Philip. "No work, nothing to think about."
"Exactly," said Gloria.
"What are you driving at, Sister. You talk as if it was something to be deplored. I call it a lark. Cheer the fellow up a bit, can't you?"
"No, never mind," replied Philip. "There's nothing to cheer me up about. The question is simply this: Can I stand a period of several years' enforced inactivity as a mere pensioner?"
"Yes!" quickly said Gloria, "as a pensioner, and then, if all goes well, you return to this." "What do you mean, Gloria? Don't you like Army Post life?" asked Jack.
"I like it as well as you do, Jack. You just haven't come to realize that Philip is cut out for a bigger sphere than--that." She pointed out across the parade ground where a drill was going on. "You know as well as I do that this is not the age for a military career."
Jack was so disgusted with this, that with an exclamation of impatience, he abruptly strode off to the parade ground.
"You are right, Gloria," said Philip. "I cannot live on a pension indefinitely. I cannot bring myself to believe that it is honest to become a mendicant upon the bounty of the country. If I had been injured in the performance of duty, I would have no scruples in accepting support during an enforced idleness, but this disability arose from no fault of the Government, and the thought of accepting aid under such circumstances is too repugnant."
"Of course," said Gloria.
"The Government means no more to me than an individual," continued Philip, "and it is to be as fairly dealt with. I never could understand how men with self-respect could accept undeserving pensions from the Nation. To do so is not alone dishonest, but is unfair to those who need help and have a righteous claim to support. If the unworthy were refused, the deserving would be able to obtain that to which they are entitled."
Their talk went on thus for hours, the girl ever trying more particularly to make him see a military career as she did, and he more concerned with the ethical side of the situation.
"Do not worry over it, Philip," cried Gloria, "I feel sure that your place is in the larger world of affairs, and you will some day be glad that this misfortune came to you, and that you were forced to go into another field of endeavor.
"With my ignorance and idle curiosity, I led you on and on, over first one hill and then another, until you lost your way in that awful desert over there, but yet perhaps there was a destiny in that. When I was leading you out of the desert, a blind man, it may be that I was leading you out of the barrenness of military life, into the fruitful field of labor for humanity."
After a long silence, Philip Dru arose and took Gloria's hand.
"Yes! I will resign. You have already reconciled me to my fate."
CHAPTER IV
THE SUPREMACY OF MIND
Officers and friends urged Philip to reconsider his determination of resigning, but once decided, he could not be swerved from his purpose. Gloria persuaded him to go to New York with her in order to consult one of the leading oculists, and arrangements were made immediately. On the last day but one, as they sat under their favorite fig tree, they talked much of Philip's future. Gloria had also been reading aloud Sir Oliver Lodge's "Science and Immortality," and closing the book upon the final chapter, asked Philip what he thought of it.
"Although the book was written many years ago, even then the truth had begun to dawn upon the poets, seers and scientific dreamers. The dominion of mind, but faintly seen at that time, but more clearly now, will finally come into full vision. The materialists under the leadership of Darwin, Huxley and Wallace, went far