ld have represented a
large sum, and then we left the restaurant and took a car up town.

When she finally held out her little hand to me it was warm, and I
fancied that from it came a current that was comforting, though it may
have been but the affectionate regard of some years of good friendship.

"You will dine again with me, next Thursday?" I asked her. "It will take
me a few days to get ready."

"Don't you think that Gordian knot had better be cut at once?" advised
Dora. "I won't change my mind, and you know I've always been an obstinate
thing. There are important things for both of us to achieve, somewhere. I
must grope about to find my share of them, for I feel like the ship that
did not find itself till it encountered a storm or two. If I promised to
meet you next week you would keep on hoping. Do plunge right in now
instead of shivering on the bank."

"Don't trouble about any more metaphors," I told her. "You promise to go
home within a year?"

"I firmly intend to," she replied, "but you can't always depend on a
woman's plans."

"If I can't depend on you I have very little left to believe in," I
declared.

"I'm pretty sure I'll come," she said, "and--and God bless you, John!"

So we separated there, in the silent street, before the nurses' home
where she had taken a room a few days after her graduation. I couldn't
trust myself to say anything more.

The door closed upon her and I slowly walked back to my quarters, with a
head full of dreary thoughts, and several times narrowly escaped speeding
taxis and brought down upon myself some picturesque language.

I fear that I was hardly in a mood to appreciate its beauty.

CHAPTER II

_From John Grant's Diary_

Four weeks ago, this evening, I sat with Dora in that bright dining room
at the Rochambeau. My description of that last meeting of ours is a
rather flippant one, I fancy, but some feminine faces are improved by
powder, and some men's sentiments by a veneer of assumed cheerfulness.
That cut of mine has not the slightest intention of healing by first
intention; it is gaping as widely as ever, as far as I can judge. Yet I
am glad I made no further effort. I suppose a man had better stop before
he gets himself disliked.

Yesterday morning I came out of a dilapidated dwelling in which I had
spent the whole night, and scrambled away over some rocks. When I sat
down my legs were hanging over a chasm at the foot of which grandly
rolling waves