“It’s this,” said Farnsworth, looking serious. “I have to go to Washington.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Patty, “one would think you were booked for Kamschatka or Siberia, the way you say it!”
“But I mean, I have to go there to stay.”
“Indefinitely. I’ve no idea how long; also—I may have to go further yet.”
“Yes. But that’s not likely at present. However, it’s bad enough to go to Washington. How can I leave _you_?”
“No, dear, that won’t be practicable. I shall be in the University Camp, drilling engineers, I suppose, but I want to do more and bigger things than that. I can’t tell you all about it, Posy Face, but as soon as I get further orders I’ll know better where I’m at.”
“Are you bothered and troubled, my Billee Boy?”
“I am, Patty. I don’t want to worry you with it, dearest, and you couldn’t understand it all, anyway, but there is a lot of backbiting and undermining and wire-pulling in Washington, and it even mixes into Army and Navy matters.”
“Then you’ll have to be an undermining engineer, won’t you?”
“Patty! You little rogue! You’d make a joke out of anything, I believe.”
“’Course I would! Now, Billee, you mustn’t look so down-hearted. You’ve got me for a joy and a comfort,—not for a burden and a—a millstone about your neck!”
“I like to have you about my neck, all right,—but you’re a featherweight, not a millstone.”
“The Engineering Corps, you mean? Oh, well, there are a lot of units,—Camouflage, Foresters, Gas and Flame, Wireless, Telephone,——”
“There, there, that’ll do! I’m bewildered. Which are you to be in?”
“That’s the trouble. It looks to me as if I’d be in the Searchlight gang——”
“Oh, Billee, have you? And you never told me!”
“Hadn’t time. There’s only time enough, when I’m with you, to tell you what I think of you.”
The lovely face was wistful and sweet, the blue eyes shone with affection and the scarlet mouth drew down a little at the corners, for Patty saw by Farnsworth’s pained expression, that he was really disturbed at their coming separation and the uncertainties of his future.
“I think,” the big man spoke, slowly, “I think you’re the loveliest thing God ever made. A thousand times too good for a big brute of a man like me——”
“You don’t treat me like a brute,” observed Patty.