Olive Higgins Prouty

“ Nathan was glad of any excuse to change the subject. He laughed with relief.
"And I, just the proper fighting age, too!" he said lightly.
"Oh, don't laugh, Nathan," the little white lady shuddered. "It's too real, and too near to laugh about. It may enter our lives before we know it, and muddle things all up for us, the way it has for the people on the other side—for me, and for Robert, and for you, Nathan, and your little gray-and-lavender lady too! You never can tell."
Nathan replied, "It may straighten things out for some of us, Mrs. Barton." ”

“ Woman were not like men. They were shy, easily frightened creatures. They had to be persuaded, and gently led—especially a woman of Rebecca's type. She was like a lily. It had been foolish of him to attempt to burn a fire in the chalice of a lily!
Thus for a while the sailor made excuse for Reba's notes. He must be patient, he told himself, bide his time, have faith; and for a while he was patient, did bide his time, did have faith. But he possessed too keen an intuition not to be aware of the change in Rebecca's letters. ”

“ Barton, which made clearer Rebecca's neglect of him, hurt Nathan. He wanted to close his eyes—his brain, too—to every evidence that might clinch the fast-growing conclusion that Rebecca wished to evade her marriage vows. So long as she had written something, acknowledged his existence, by even addressing envelopes to him, there was the consolation that, while there is life, there is hope. ”