trast to his sunburnt throat. A feeling of giddy faintness
surged over Tessie. She stepped blindly into the boat and would have
fallen if Chuck's hard, firm grip had not steadied her. "Whoa, there!
Don't you know how to step into a boat? There. Walk along the middle."
She sat down and smiled up at him. "I don't know how I come to do that.
I never did before."

Chuck braced his feet, rolled up his sleeves, and took an oar in each
brown hand, bending rhythmically to his task. He looked about him, then
at the girl, and drew a deep breath, feathering his oars. "I guess I
must have dreamed about this more'n a million times."

"Have you, Chuck?"

They drifted on in silence. "Say, Tess, you ought to learn to row. It's
good exercise. Those girls in California and New York, they play
baseball and row and swim as good as the boys. Honest, some of 'em are
wonders!"

"Oh, I'm sick of your swell New York friends! Can't you talk about
something else?"

He saw that he had blundered without in the least understanding how or
why. "All right. What'll we talk about?" In itself a fatal admission.

"About--you." Tessie made it a caress.

"Me? Nothin' to tell about me. I just been drillin' and studyin' and
marchin' and readin' some--Oh, say, what d'you think?"

"What?"

"They been learnin' us--teachin' us, I mean--French. It's the darnedest
language! Bread is pain. Can you beat that? If you want to ask for a
piece of bread, you say like this: _Donnay ma un morso doo pang_. See?"

"My!" breathed Tessie, all admiration.

And within her something was screaming: "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! He
knows French. And those girls that can row and everything. And me, I
don't know anything. Oh, God, what'll I do?"

It was as though she could see him slipping away from her, out of her
grasp, out of her sight. She had no fear of what might come to him in
France. Bullets and bayonets would never hurt Chuck. He'd make it, just
as he always made the 7.50 when it seemed as if he was going to miss it
sure. He'd make it there and back, all right. But he--he'd be a
different Chuck, while she stayed the same Tessie. Books, travel,
French, girls, swell folks--

And all the while she was smiling and dimpling and trailing her hand in
the water. "Bet you can't guess what I got in that lunch box."

"Chocolate cake."

"Well, of course I've got chocolate cake. I baked it myself this
morning."

"Yes, you did!"

"Why, Chuck Mory, I did so! I guess you th