Under Enemy Colors Read Online Free PDF Page B

particular importance.
    Hayden was no more given to introspection than many a young man of active temperament, nor were his brief forays into self-awareness productive of great insight, so to be questioned so closely, while wishing so to impress, had the effect of banishing all thoughts. He threw up his hands. “The truth is, when I am in France I feel like an Englishman masquerading as French. When I am here I feel like a Frenchman pretending to be English.”
    “Then you are at home in neither country,” Henrietta observed softly.
    Hayden was about to answer when Robert interrupted.
    “He is at home upon a ship—preferably in mid-Channel between his two nations.”
    But Henrietta did not smile at this. She merely regarded him gravely a moment, then looked quickly away.
    “Henrietta is writing a novel, did you know?” Mrs Hertle said, as though whispering a secret.
    “Now, Elizabeth, there really is such a thing as a confidence,” Henrietta chastised her friend, but Hayden thought she was not really sorry this had been brought to light.
    “It is about two women,” Mrs Hertle went on mischievously, “one a woman of education—rather like Henrietta—the other of no education to speak of but much social advantage. How does it progress, Henri?”
    “Despite my greatest efforts, anything one might term ‘progress’ has ceased.”
    “You must keep at it. Art is not made without adversity.” Mrs Hertle turned to Hayden. “I have read a good number of pages, now, and can avouch for the author’s skill, which is very high indeed.” She smiled, including both men. “But there is a matter that cannot be decided by the authoress and I seem to have very little influence, much to my chagrin. Now, give us your most considered opinion: should not the woman of education have the happier ending? That is what we have been arguing for several months.”
    “These gentlemen are not interested in novels!” Henrietta argued.
    “I happen to know that Lieutenant Hayden has read Rousseau’s Emile ,” Mrs Hertle stage-whispered behind her hand, “and Captain Hertle once indulged in a volume of Mrs Richardson’s.”
    “Who do you think should have the happier ending, Miss Henrietta?” Hayden asked.
    She shook her head, looking genuinely distressed. “First I believe it should be the one, then the other.”
    “Certainly it must be the educated woman who achieves the happier life,” Mrs Hertle insisted, “while to the other befalls the unhappy; though, perhaps, not of her making. Not a downfall so much as a stifled kind of complacency. Just what one would expect for a person who had not thought deeply about the time allotted her.”
    “But you place so much emphasis upon happiness,” Henrietta replied. “I do realize that the Americans have recently enshrined it in their Declaration, but I am not certain it is mankind’s highest calling. What think you, Captain Hertle?”
    “Oh, do not ask them ,” Mrs Hertle interrupted. “Navy men must all answer that the highest calling is ‘duty,’ like a flock of bleating, blue-coated sheep.”
    Robert Hertle did not look perturbed by his wife’s pronouncement. “I do not pretend to have an answer where greater minds than mine have strived and failed.”
    “Certainly lesser minds than yours have had much to say on the subject,” Henrietta responded. “Come, you are not usually chary with your opinions…”
    Robert laughed, as though embarrassed. “Happiness is certainly of great import to me, but I am putting my happiness at risk by leaving Mrs Hertle’s side and going off to war, so I must be one of those Navy men who bleat ‘duty’ by day and night.”
    Henrietta Carthew considered this a moment, then turned to Hayden. “And do you agree, Lieutenant?”
    “I fear a great deal has been accomplished in the world by people who make no claim to happiness or contentment of any form. I am much of two minds as regards this; like Mrs Hertle, I desire nothing more than