ld recover--thank God for it! Thank--and then, under all, through
all, over and over, that aching monotony: "She needs you. Jimmy. She
needs you. Jimmy."

"Needs me!" I groaned aloud.

"_Plait-il?_" politely murmured the harassed-looking little French
captain, my vis-a-vis.

"_Mille pardons, monsieur_," I murmured back. "_On a quelquefois des
griefs particuliers, vous savez._"

"_Ah dame, oui!_" he sighed. "_Par le temps qui court!_"

"_Et ce pachyderme de train qui ne court jamais!_" I smiled.

"_Ah, pour ca--ca repose!_" murmured the little French captain, and shut
his eyes.

"She needs you. Jimmy. She needs you. Jimmy. She needs----"

Then, miraculously, for two blotted hours I slept. But I woke again,
utterly unrefreshed, to the old refrain: _She needs you--needs
you--needs you...._

The little French captain was still asleep, snoring now--but softly--in
his corner. Ah, lucky little French captain! _Ca repose!_

IV

One afternoon, five or six days later, I was seated by the
white-enamelled iron bed in the small white room. Susan had had a long,
quiet, normal nap, and her brisk sparrow-eyed Norman nurse, in her
pretty costume of the French Red Cross, had come to me in the little
reception-room of the hospital, where I had been sitting for an hour
stupidly thumbing over tattered copies of ancient American magazines,
and had informed me--with rather an ambiguous twinkle of those sparrow
eyes--that her patient had asked to see me as soon as she had waked, was
evidently feeling stronger, and that it was to be hoped _M. le
Capitaine_ would be discreet and say nothing to excite or fatigue the
poor little one. "_Je me sauve, m'sieu_," she had added, mischievously
grave; "_on ne peut avoir l'oeil a tout, mais--je compte sur vous._"

So innocently delighted had she been by her pleasant suspicions, it was
impossible to let her feel how sharply her raillery had pained me. But I
could not reply in kind. I had merely bowed, put down the magazine in my
hand, and so left her--to inevitable reflections, I presume, upon the
afflicting reticence of these otherwise so agreeable allies _d'outre
mer_. Their education was evidently deplorable. One never knew when they
would miss step, inconveniently, and so disarrange the entire social
rhythm of a conversation.

"Ambo," said Susan, putting her hand in mine, "do you know at all how
terribly I've missed you?" She turned her head weakly on her pillow and
looked at me. "You