" Her eyes dropped
before mine, yet only to uplift themselves again, shining with brave
resolution. "Would you care to tell me what it is with you? What it
is you fight?"
"I am afraid I do not fight, except physically," I confessed soberly.
"Probably that is the whole trouble. If I have ever had a grip I 've
lost it. However I 'm willing to tell my story, although it's a poor
one, just the uninteresting recital of a fool. My home was in New
England, my father a fairly successful manufacturer. My mother died
while I was a child, and I grew up without restraining influence. I
led an ordinary boy's life, but was always headstrong, and willful,
excelling physically. My delight was hunting, and the out-of-doors.
However I kept along with my studies after a fashion, and entered the
University. Here I devoted most of my time to students' pranks, and
athletics, but got through two years before being expelled.
Interesting, is n't it?"
"Yes," she said. "It is what I wish to know."
"This expulsion resulted In a row at home," I went on, disgusted at
myself. "And I took French leave. For six months I knocked about,
doing a little of everything, having rather a tough time, but too
obstinate to confess my mistake and return. Of course I naturally fell
in with a hard set, and finally enlisted.
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