“Wonderful and terrible,” Lieutenant Warren murmured.
One etching pictured a huge cannon belching forth hate in the form of black smoke, and emerging from that smoke was a beautiful woman. Her hands had been turned into claws, and on her face was a look of unutterable rage.
“And yet she is gorgeous,” Norma whispered.
The second etching showed a valiant French pilot falling from his wrecked and burning plane down to certain death. But beneath him, hands locked, waiting, ready to catch him and bear him away, were two beautiful angels.
“Yes,” said the Lieutenant who had been through so much in France. “This is war. It is beautiful and it is terrible.”
“This is war,” the gray-haired man agreed.
“Come,” invited the hostess. “Dinner is about to be served.”
There were busy and exciting times in Norma Kent’s life when she ate a meal and enjoyed it to the full and yet, two hours later, she could not have told what she had eaten. This was to be just such a meal. The food was delicious, the silver and dishes charming, but the conversation absorbed all her attention. Little wonder, for it seemed to her that her whole future hung in the balance.
Somewhere between soup and roast chicken Lieutenant Warren said all too casually:
“Did I hear them say you had been asked to enter officers’ training?”
“You may have heard that,” Norma flushed. “It has been suggested by a lady in high position.”
“It’s quite an honor, don’t you think so, Mr. Kent?” The Lieutenant turned to Norma’s father.
“And you deserve it,” Lieutenant Warren said, with a bright smile. “We’re proud of you. Please accept my congratulations, and allow me to wish you all the luck in the world.”
“Wait a minute!” Norma exclaimed. “Put on the brakes! I haven’t said I would accept.”
Her father gave her a quick look. The smile on Lieutenant Warren’s face appeared to light up a little as she said: “Do you mind telling me why you said that?”
“Not a bit,” was the quick response. “It’s because I want to come up the hard way, Dad,” she said. “That’s how you climbed up in that other war.”
“Yes.” A rare smile spread over the gray-haired man’s face. “However, I had no choice. With me it was that way or not at all.”
“All the same,” Norma insisted, “I want to get out and do some real work. I was in college for four years, and now at the Fort for a month. What I want to know is, can I really do any worthwhile work?”