Chambers Robert William
The Crimson Tide: A Novel

Estridge, standing there on the sidewalk in the fog, smiled:

“You’re very eloquent, Jim. Why don’t you say all this to Palla?”

“I did. I told her, too, that the root of the whole thing was selfishness. And it is. It’s a refusal to play the game according to rule. There are only two sexes and one of ’em is fashioned to bear young, and the other is fashioned to hustle for mother and kid. You can’t alter that, whether it’s fair or not. It’s the game as we found it. The rules were already provided for playing it. The legal father and mother are supposed to look out for their own legal progeny. And any alteration of this rule, with a view to irresponsible mating and turning the offspring over to the community to take care of, would create an unhuman race, unconscious of the highest form of love–the love for parents.

“A fine lot we’d be as an incubated race!”

Estridge laughed: “I’ve got to go,” he said, “And, if you care for Palla as you say you do, you oughtn’t to leave her entirely alone with her circle of modernist friends. Stick around! It may make you mad, but if she likes you, at least she won’t commit an indiscretion with anybody else.”

“I wish I could find my own sort as amusing,” said Jim, naïvely. “I’ve been going about recently–dances, dinners, theatres–but I can’t seem to keep my mind off Palla.”

Estridge said: “If you’d give your sense of humour half a chance you’d be all right. You take yourself too solemnly. You let Palla scare you. That’s not the way. The thing to do is to have a jolly time with her, with them all. Accept her as she thinks she is. There’s no damage done yet. Time enough to throw fits if she takes the bit and bolts–”

He extended his hand, cordially but impatiently:

“You remember I once said that girl ought to be married and have children? If you do the marrying part she’s likely to do the rest very handsomely. And it will be the making of her.”

Jim held on to his hand:

“Tell me what to do, Jack. She isn’t in love with me. And she wouldn’t submit to a legal ceremony if she were. You invoke my sense of humour. I’m willing to give it an airing, only I can’t see anything funny in this business.”

“It is funny! Palla’s funny, but doesn’t know it. You’re funny! They’re all funny–unintentionally. But their motives are tragically immaculate. So stick around and have a good time with Palla until there’s really something to scare you.”

“And then?”

“How the devil do I know? It’s up to you, of course, what you do about it.”

He laughed and strode away through the fog.

It had seemed to Jim a long time since he had seen Palla. It wasn’t very long. And in all that interminable time he had not once called her up on the telephone–had not even written her a single line. Nor had she written to him.

He had gone about his social business in his own circle, much to his mother’s content. He had seen quite a good deal of Elorn Sharrow; was comfortably back on the old, agreeable footing; tried desperately to enjoy it; pretended that he did.

But the days were long in the office; the evenings longer, wherever he happened to be; and the nights, alas! were becoming interminable, now, because he slept badly, and the grey winter daylight found him unrefreshed.

Which, recently, had given him a slightly battered appearance, commented on jestingly by young rakes and old sports at the Patroon’s Club, and also observed by his mother with gentle concern.

“Don’t overdo it, Jim,” she cautioned him, meaning dances that ended with breakfasts and that sort of thing. But her real concern was vaguer than that–deeper, perhaps. And sometimes she remembered the girl in black.

Lately, however, that anxiety had been almost entirely allayed. And her comparative peace of mind had come about in an unexpected manner.

For, one morning, entering the local Red Cross quarters, where for several hours she was accustomed to sew, she encountered Mrs. Speedwell and her lively daughter, Connie–her gossiping informants concerning her son’s appearance at Delmonico’s with the mysterious girl in black.

“Well, what do you suppose, Helen?” said Mrs. Speedwell, mischievously. “Jim’s pretty mystery in black is here!”

“Here?” repeated Mrs. Shotwell, flushing and looking around her at the rows of prophylactic ladies, all sewing madly side by side.

“Yes, and she’s prettier even than I thought her in Delmonico’s,” remarked Connie. “Her name is Palla Dumont, and she’s a friend of Leila Vance.”

During the morning, Mrs. Shotwell found it convenient to speak to Leila Vance; and they exchanged a pleasant word or two–merely the amiable civilities of two women who recognise each other socially as well as personally.

And it happened in that way, a few days later, that Helen Shotwell met this pretty friend of Leila Vance–Palla Dumont–the girl in black.

And Palla had looked up from her work with her engaging smile, saying: “I know your son, Mrs. Shotwell. Is he quite well? I haven’t seen him for such a long time.”

And instantly the invisible antennæ of these two women became busy exploring, probing, searching, and recognising in each other all that remains forever incomprehensible to man.

For Palla somehow understood that Jim had never spoken of her to his mother; and yet that his mother had heard of her friendship with her son.

And Helen knew that Palla was quietly aware of this, and that the girl’s equanimity remained undisturbed.

Only people quite sure of themselves preserved serenity under the merciless exploration of the invisible feminine antennæ. And it was evident that the girl in black had nothing to conceal from her in regard to her only son–whatever that same son might think he ought to make an effort to conceal from his mother.

To herself Helen thought: “Jim has had his wings singed, and has fled the candle.”

To Palla she said: “Mrs. Vance tells me such interesting stories of your experiences in Russia. Really, it’s like a charming romance–your friendship for the poor little Grand Duchess.”

“A tragic one,” said Palla in a voice so even that Helen presently lifted her eyes from her sewing to read in her expression something more than the mere words that this young girl had uttered. And saw a still, pale face, sensitive and very lovely; and the needle flying over a bandage no whiter than the hand that held it.

“It was a great shock to you–her death,” said Helen.

“Yes.”

“And–you were there at the time! How dreadful!”

Palla lifted her brown eyes: “I can’t talk about it yet,” she said so simply that Helen’s sixth sense, always alert for information from the busy, invisible antennæ, suddenly became convinced that there were no more hidden depths to explore–no motives to suspect, no pretense to expose.

Day after day she chose to seat herself between Palla and Leila Vance; and the girl began to fascinate her.

There was no effort to please on Palla’s part, other than that natural one born of sweet-tempered consideration for everybody. There seemed to be no pretence, no pose.

Such untroubled frankness, such unconscious candour were rather difficult to believe in, yet Helen was now convinced that in Palla these phenomena were quite genuine. And she began to understand more clearly, as the week wore on, why her son might have had a hard time of it with Palla Dumont before he returned to more familiar pastures, where camouflage and not candour was the rule in the gay and endless game of blind-man’s buff.

“This girl,” thought Helen Shotwell to herself, “could easily have taken Jim away from Elorn Sharrow had she chosen to do so. There is no doubt about her charm and her goodness. She certainly is a most unusual girl.”

But she did not say this to her only son. She did not even tell him that she had met his girl in black. And Palla had not informed him; she knew that; because the girl herself had told her that she had not seen Jim for “a long, long time.” It really was not nearly as long as Palla seemed to consider it.

Helen lunched with Leila Vance one day. The former spoke pleasantly of Palla.

“She’s such a darling,” said Mrs. Vance, “but the child worries me.”

“Why?”

“Well, she’s absorbed some ultra-modern Russian notions–socialistic ones–rather shockingly radical. Can you imagine it in a girl who began her novitiate as a Carmelite nun?”

Helen said: “She does not seem to have a tendency toward extremes.”

“She has. That awful affair in Russia seemed to shock her from one extreme to another. It’s a long way from the cloister to the radical rostrum.”

“She spoke of this new Combat Club.”

“She organised it,” said Leila. “They have a hall where they invite public discussion of social questions three nights a week. The other three nights, a rival and very red club rents the hall and howls for anarchy and blood.”

“Isn’t it strange?” said Helen. “One can not imagine such a girl devoting herself to radical propaganda.”

“Too radical,” said Leila. “I’m keeping an uneasy eye on that very wilful and wrong-headed child. Why, my dear, she has the most fastidious, the sweetest, the most chaste mind, and yet the things she calmly discusses would make your hair curl.”

“For example?” inquired Helen, astonished.

“Well, for example, they’ve all concluded that it’s time to strip poor old civilisation of her tinsel customs, thread-worn conventions, polite legends, and pleasant falsehoods.

“All laws are silly. Everybody is to do as they please, conforming only to the universal law of Love and Service. Do you see where that would lead some of those pretty hot-heads?”

“Good heavens, I should think so!”

“Of course. But they can’t seem to understand that the unscrupulous are certain to exploit them–that the most honest motives–the purest–invite that certain disaster consequent on social irregularities.

“Palla, so far, is all hot-headed enthusiast–hot-hearted theorist. But I remember that she did take the white veil once. And, as I tell you, I shall try to keep her within range of my uneasy vision. Because,” she added, “she’s really a perfect darling.”

“She is a most attractive girl,” said Helen slowly; “but I think she’d be more attractive still if she were happily married.”

“And had children.”

Their eyes met, unsmilingly, yet in silent accord.

Their respective cars awaited them at the Ritz and took them in different directions. But all the afternoon Helen Shotwell’s mind was occupied with what she now knew of Palla Dumont. And she realised that she wished the girl were back in Russia in spite of all her charm and fascination–yes, on account of it.

Because this lovely, burning asteroid might easily cross the narrow orbit through which her own social world spun peacefully in its orderly progress amid that metropolitan galaxy called Society.

Leila Vance was part of that galaxy. So was her own and only son. Wandering meteors that burnt so prettily might yet do damage.

For Helen, having known this girl, found it not any too easy to believe that her son could have relinquished her completely in so disturbingly brief a time.

Had she been a young man she knew that she would not have done so. And, knowing it, she was troubled.

Meanwhile, her only son was troubled, too, as he walked slowly homeward through the winter fog.

And by the time he was climbing his front steps he had concluded to accept this girl as she was–or thought she was–to pull no more long faces or sour faces, but to go back to her, resolutely determined to enjoy her friendship and her friends too; and give his long incarcerated sense of humour an airing, even if he suffered acutely while it revelled.

CHAPTER XIII

Palla’s activities seemed to exhilarate her physically and mentally. Body and brain were now fully occupied; and, if the profit to her soul were dubious, nevertheless the restless spirit of the girl now had an outlet; and at home and in the Combat Club she planned and discussed and investigated the world’s woes to her ardent heart’s content.

Physically, too, Red Cross and canteen work gave her much needed occupation; and she went everywhere on foot, never using bus, tram or taxicab. The result was, in spite of late and sometimes festive hours, that Palla had become something more than an unusually pretty girl, for there was much of real beauty in her full and charming face and in her enchantingly rounded yet lithe and lissome figure.

About the girl, also, there seemed to be a new freshness like fragrance–a virginal sweetness–that indefinable perfume of something young and vigorous that is already in bud.

That morning she went over to the dingy row of buildings to sign the lease of the hall for three evenings a week, as quarters for Combat Club No. 1.

The stuffy place where the Red Flag Club had met the night before was still reeking with stale smoke and the effluvia of the unwashed; but the windows were open and a negro was sweeping up a litter of defunct cigars.

“Yaas’m, Mr. Puma’s office is next do’,” he replied to Palla’s inquiry; “–Sooperfillum Co’poration. Yaas’m.”

Next door had been a stable and auction ring, and odours characteristic still remained, although now the ring had been partitioned, boarded over and floored, and Mr. Hewitt’s glass rods full of blinding light were suspended above the studio ceilings of the Super-Picture Corporation.

Palla entered the brick archway. An office on the right bore the name of Angelo Puma; and that large, richly coloured gentleman hastily got out of his desk chair and flashed a pair of magnificent as well as astonished eyes upon Palla as she opened the door and walked in.

When she had seated herself and stated her business, Puma, with a single gesture, swept from the office several men and a stenographer, and turned to Palla.

“Is it you, then, who are this Combat Club which would rent from me the hall next door!” he exclaimed, showing every faultless tooth in his head.

Palla smiled: “I am empowered by the club to sign a lease.”

“That is sufficient!” exclaimed Puma, with a superb gesture. “So! It is signed! Your desire is enough. The matter is accomplished when you express the wish!”

Palla blushed a little but smilingly affixed her signature to the papers elaborately presented by Angelo Puma.

“A lease?” he remarked, with a flourish of his large, sanguine, and jewelled hand. “A detail merely for your security, Miss Dumont. For me, I require only the expression of your slightest wish. That, to me, is a command more binding than the seal of the notary!”

And he flashed his dazzling smile on Palla, who was tucking her copy of the agreement into her muff.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Puma,” she said, almost inclined to laugh at his extravagances. And she laid down a certified check to cover the first month’s rental.

Mr. Puma bowed; his large, heavily lashed black eyes were very brilliant; his mouth much too red under the silky black moustache.

“For me,” he said impulsively, “art alone matters. What is money? What is rent? What are all the annoying details of commerce? Interruptions to the soul-flow! Checks to the fountain jet of inspiration! Art only is important. Have you ever seen a cinema studio, Miss Dumont?”

Palla never had.

“Would it interest you, perhaps?”

“Thank you–some time–”

“It is but a step! They are working. A peep will take but a moment–if you please–a thousand excuses that I proceed to show you the way!–”

She stepped through a door. From a narrow anteroom she saw the set-scene in a ghastly light, where men in soiled shirt-sleeves dragged batteries of electric lights about, each underbred face as livid as the visage of a corpse too long unburied.

There were women there, too, looking a little more human in their makeups under the horrible bluish glare. Camera men were busy; a cadaverous and profane director, with his shabby coat-collar turned up, was talking loudly in a Broadway voice and jargon to a bewildered girl wearing a ball gown.

As Puma led Palla through the corridor from partition to partition, disclosing each set with its own scene and people–the whole studio full of blatant noise and ghastly faces or painted ones, Palla thought she had never before beheld such a concentration of every type of commonness in her entire existence. Faces, shapes, voices, language, all were essentially the properties of congenital vulgarity. The language, too, had to be sharply rebuked by Puma once or twice amid the wrangling of director, camera man and petty subordinates.

“So intense are the emotions evoked by a fanatic devotion to art,” he explained to Palla, “that, at moments, the old, direct and vigorous Anglo-Saxon tongue is heard here, unashamed. What will you? It is art! It is the fervour that forgets itself in blind devotion–in rapturous self-dedication to the god of Truth and Beauty!”

As she turned away, she heard from a neighbouring partition the hoarse expostulations of one of Art’s blind acolytes: “Say, f’r Christ’s sake, Delmour, what the hell’s loose in your bean! Yeh done it wrong an’ yeh know damn well yeh done it wrong–”

Puma opened another door: “One of our projection rooms, Miss Dumont. If it is your pleasure to see a few reels run off–”

“Thank you, but I really must go–”

The office door stood open and she went out that way. Mr. Puma confronted her, moistly brilliant of eye:

“For me, Miss Dumont, I am frank like there never was a child in arms! Yes. I am all art; all heart. For me, beauty is God!–” he kissed his fat fingers and wafted the caress toward the dirty ceiling.

“Please excuse,” he said with his powerful smile, “but have you ever, perhaps, thought, Miss Dumont, of the screen as a career?”

“I?” asked Palla, surprised and amused. “No, Mr. Puma, I haven’t.”

“A test! Possibly, in you, latent, sleeps the exquisite apotheosis of Art incarnate! Who can tell? You have youth, beauty, a mind! Yes. Who knows if, also, happily, genius slumbers within? Yes?”

“I’m very sure it doesn’t,” replied Palla, laughing.

“Ah! Who can be sure of anything–even of heaven!” cried Puma.

“Very true,” said Palla, trying to speak seriously, “But the career of a moving picture actress does not attract me.”

“The emoluments are enormous!”

“Thank you, no–”

“A test! We try! It would be amusing for you to see yourself upon the screen as you are, Miss Dumont? As you are– young, beautiful, vivacious–”

He still blocked her way, so she said, laying her gloved hand on the knob:

“Thank you very much. Some day, perhaps. But I really must go–”

He immediately bowed, opened the glass door, and went with her to the brick arch.

“I do not think you know,” he said, “that I have entered partnership with a friend of yours?”

“A friend of mine?”

“Mr. Elmer Skidder.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, smilingly, “I hope the partnership will be a fortunate one. Will you kindly inform Mr. Skidder of my congratulations and best wishes for his prosperity? And you may say that I shall be glad to hear from him about his new enterprise.”

To Mr. Puma’s elaborate leave-taking she vouchsafed a quick, amused nod, then hurried away eastward to keep her appointment at the Canteen.

About five o’clock she experienced a healthy inclination for tea and wavered between the Plaza and home. Ilse and Marya were with her, but an indefinable something caused her to hesitate, and finally to let them go to the Plaza without her.

What might be the reason of this sudden whim for an unpremeditated cup of tea at home she scarcely took the trouble to analyse. Yet, she was becoming conscious of a subtle and increasing exhilaration as she approached her house and mounted the steps.

Suddenly, as she fitted the latch-key, her heart leaped and she knew why she had come home.

For a moment her fast pulse almost suffocated her. Was she mad to return here on the wildest chance that Jim might have come–might be inside, waiting? And what in the world made her suppose so?–for she had neither seen him nor heard from him in many days.

“I’m certainly a little crazy,” she thought as she opened the door. At the same moment her eyes fell on his overcoat and hat and stick.

Her skirt was rather tight, but her limbs were supple and her feet light, and she ran upstairs to the living room.

As he rose from an armchair she flung her arms out with a joyous little cry and wrapped them tightly around his neck, muff, reticule and all.

“You darling,” he was saying over and over in a happy but rather stupid voice, and crushing her narrow hands between his; “–you adorable child, you wonderful girl–”

“Oh, I’m so glad, Jim! Shall we have tea?.. You dear fellow! I’m so very happy that you came! Wait a moment–” she leaned wide from him and touched an electric bell. “Now you’ll have to behave properly,” she said with delightful malice.

He released her; she spoke to the maid and then went over with him to the sofa, flinging muff, stole and purse on a chair.

“Pure premonition,” she explained, stripping the gloves from her hands. “Ilse and Marya were all for the Plaza, but something sent me homeward! Isn’t it really very strange, Jim? Why, I almost had an inclination to run when I turned into our street–not even knowing why, of course–”

“You’re so sweet and generous!” he blurted out. “Why don’t you raise hell with me?”

“You know,” she said demurely, “I don’t raise hell, dear.”

“But I’ve behaved so rottenly–”

“It really wasn’t friendly to neglect me so entirely.”

He looked down–laid one hand on hers in silence.

“I understand, Jim,” she said sweetly. “Is it all right now?”

“It’s all right… Of course I haven’t changed.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s all right.”

“Really?”

“Yes… What is there for me to do but to accept things as they are?”

“You mean, ‘accept me as I am!’ Oh, Jim, it’s so dear of you. And you know well enough that I care for no other man as I do for you–”

The waitress with the tea-tray cut short that sort of conversation. Palla’s appetite was a healthy one. She unpinned her hat and flung it on the piano. Then she nestled down sideways on the sofa, one leg tucked under the other knee, her hair in enough disorder to worry any other girl–and began to tuck away tea and cakes. Sometimes, in animated conversation, she gesticulated with a buttered bun–once she waved her cup to emphasise her point:

“The main idea, of course, is to teach the eternal law of Love and Service,” she explained. “But, Jim, I have become recently, and in a measure, militant.”

“You’re going to love the unwashed with a club?”

“You very impudent boy! We’re going to combat this new and terrible menace–this sinister flood that threatens the world–the crimson tide of anarchy!”

“Good work, darling! I enlist for a machine gun uni–”

“Listen! The battle is to be entirely verbal. Our Combat Club No. 1, the first to be established–is open to anybody and everybody. All are at liberty to enter into the discussions. We who believe in the Law of Love and Service shall have our say every evening that the club is open–”

“The Reds may come and take a crack at you.”

“The Reds are welcome. We wish to face them across the rostrum, not across a barricade!”

“Well, you dear girl, I can’t see how any Red is going to resist you. And if any does, I’ll knock his bally block off–”

“Oh, Jim, you’re so vernacularly inclined! And you’re very flippant, too–”

“I’m not really,” he said in a lower voice. “Whatever you care about could not fail to appeal to me.”

She gave him a quick, sweet glance, then searched the tea-tray to reward him.

As she gave him another triangle of cinnamon toast, she remembered something else. It was on the tip of her tongue, now; and she checked herself.

He had not spoken of it. Had his mother mentioned meeting her at the Red Cross? If not–was it merely a natural forgetfulness on his mother’s part? Was her silence significant?

Nibbling pensively at her cinnamon toast, Palla pondered this. But the girl’s mind worked too directly for concealment to come easy.

“I’m wondering,” she said, “whether your mother mentioned our meeting at the Red Cross.” And she knew immediately by his expression that he heard it for the first time.

“I was introduced at our headquarters by Leila Vance,” said Palla, in her even voice; “and your mother and she are acquaintances. That is how it happened, Jim.”

He was still somewhat flushed but he forced a smile: “Did you find my mother agreeable, Palla?”

“Yes. And she is so beautiful with her young face and pretty white hair. She always sits between Leila and me while we sew.”

“Did you say you knew me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Of course,” he repeated, reddening again.

No man ever has successfully divined any motive which any woman desires to conceal.

Why his mother had not spoken of Palla to him he did not know. He was aware, of course, that nobody within the circle into which he had been born would tolerate Palla’s social convictions. Had she casually and candidly revealed a few of them to his mother in the course of the morning’s conversation over their sewing?

He gave Palla a quick look, encountered her slightly amused eyes, and turned redder than ever.

“You dear boy,” she said, smiling, “I don’t think your very charming mother would be interested in knowing me. The informality of ultra-modern people could not appeal to her generation.”

“Did you–talk to her about–”

“No. But it might happen. You know, Jim, I have nothing to conceal.”

The old troubled look had come back into his face. She noticed it and led the conversation to lighter themes.

“We danced last night after dinner,” she said. “There were some amusing people here for dinner. Then we went to see such a charming play–Tea for Three– and then we had supper at the Biltmore and danced… Will you dine with me to-morrow?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think you’d enjoy it?–a lot of people who entertain the same shocking beliefs that I do?”

“All right!” he said with emphasis. “I’m through playing the rôle of death’s-head at the feast. I told you that I’m going to take you as you are and enjoy you and our friends–and quit making an ass of myself–”

“Dear, you never did!”

“Oh, yes, I did. And maybe I’m a predestined ass. But every ass has a pair of heels and I’m going to flourish mine very gaily from now on!”

She protested laughingly at his self-characterisation, and bent toward him a little, caressing his sleeve in appeal, or shaking it in protest as he denounced himself and promised to take the world more gaily in the future.

“You’ll see,” he remarked, rising to take his leave: “I may even call the bluff of some of your fluffy ultra-modern friends and try a few trial marriages with each of ’em–”

“Oh, Jim, you’re absolutely horrid! As if my friends believed in such disgusting ideas!”

“They do–some of ’em.”

“They don’t!”

“Well, then, I do!” he announced so gravely that she had to look at him closely in the rather dim lamplight to see whether he was jesting.

She walked to the top of the staircase with him; let him take her into his arms; submitted to his kiss. Always a little confused by his demonstrations, nevertheless her hand retained his for a second longer, as though shyly reluctant to let him go.

“I am so glad you came,” she said. “Don’t neglect me any more.”

And so he went his way.

His mother discovered him in the library, dressed for dinner. Something, as he rose–his manner of looking at her, perhaps–warned her that they were not perfectly en rapport. Then the subtle, invisible antennæ, exploring caressingly what is so palpable in the heart of man, told her that once more she was to deal with the girl in black.

When his mother was seated, he said: “I didn’t know you had met Palla Dumont, mother.”

Helen hesitated: “Mrs. Vance’s friend? Oh, yes; she comes to the Red Cross with Leila Vance.”

“Do you like her?”

In her son’s eyes she was aware of that subtle and unconscious appeal which all mothers of boys are, some day, fated to see and understand.

Sometimes the appeal is disguised, sometimes it is so subtle that only mothers are able to perceive it.

But what to do about it is the perennial problem. For between lack of sympathy and response there are many nuances; and opposition is always to be avoided.

Helen said, pleasantly, that the girl appeared to be amiable and interesting.

“I know her merely in that way,” she continued. “We sit there sewing slings, pads, compresses, and bandages, and we gossip at random with our neighbours.”

“I like her very much,” said Jim.

“She does seem to be an attractive girl,” said his mother carelessly… “Are you going to Yama Farms for the week end?”

“No.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. The Speedwells’ party is likely to be such a jolly affair, and I hear there’s lots of snow up there.”

“I haven’t met Mrs. Vance,” said her son. “Is she nice?”

“Leila Vance? Why, of course.”

“Who is she?”

“She married an embassy attaché, Captain Vance. He was in the old army–killed at Mons four years ago.”

“She and Palla are intimate?”

“I believe they are good friends,” remarked his mother, deciding not to attempt to turn the current of conversation for the moment.

“Mother?”

“Yes, dear.”

“I am quite sure I never met a girl I like as well.”

Helen laughed: “That is a trifle extravagant, isn’t it?”

“No… I asked her to marry me.”

Helen’s heart stood still, then a bright flush stained her face.

“She refused me,” said the boy.

His mother said very quietly: “Of course this is news to us, Jim.”

“Yes, I didn’t tell you. I couldn’t, somehow. But I’ve told you now.”

“Dearest,” she said, dropping her hand over his, “don’t think me unsympathetic if I say that it really is better that she refused you.”

“I understand, mother.”

“I hope you do.”

“Oh, yes. But I don’t think you do. Because I am still in love with her.”

“You poor dear!”

“It’s rotten luck, isn’t it?”

“Time heals–” She checked herself, turned and kissed him.

“After all,” she said, “a soldier learns how to take things.”

And presently: “I do wish you’d go up to Yama Farms.”

“That,” he said, “would be the obvious thing to do. Anything to keep going and keep your mind ticking away until you’re safely wound up again… But I’m not going, dear.”

Helen looked at him in silence, not wondering what he might be going to do with his week-end instead, because she already guessed.

Before she said anything more his father came in; and a moment later dinner was announced.

Jim slept soundly for the first night in a long time. His mother scarcely closed her eyes at all.