He asked her again and yet again. He liked dancing with her. Sometimes
when she talked her eyes were like green flames. But she talked of
nothing long and the flames would die and her little waiting smile come
entreating consideration for her infirmities.

"Now you be sure to come straight to me directly you're wounded," she
again cautioned him as they parted.

He shook hands warmly with her. He liked the girl, but he hoped there
would be other nurses at hand if this thing occurred; that is, if it
proved to be anything serious.

"Anyway, I hope I'll see you," he said. "I guess home faces will be
scarce over there."

She looked him over approvingly.

"Be a good soldier," she said.

Again they shook hands. Then she fluttered off under the gloomy charge
of Merle, who had remained austerely aloof from the night's gayety.
Wilbur had had but a few words with him, for Patricia claimed his time.

"You seem a lot older than I do now," he said, and Merle, brushing back
the errant lock, had replied: "Poor chap, you're a victim of the mob
reaction. Of course I'm older now. I'm face to face with age-long
problems that you've never divined the existence of. It does age one."

"I suppose so," agreed Wilbur.

He felt shamed, apologetic for his course. Still he would have some
plain fighting, Wall Street or no Wall Street.

He wrested a chattering Winona from Mrs. Henrietta Plunkett at the door
of the ladies' cloakroom. Mrs. Plunkett was Newbern's ablest exponent of
the cause of woman, and she had been disquieted this night at observing
signs of an unaccustomed frivolity in one of her hitherto stanchest
disciples.

"I can't think what has come over you!" she had complained to Winona.
"You seem like a different girl!"

"I am a different girl!" boasted Winona.

"You do look different--your gown is wonderfully becoming, and what
lovely slippers!" Mrs. Plunkett inspected the aged debutante with kindly
eyes. "But remember, my dear, we mustn't let frivolities like this
divert our attention from the cause. A bit more of the good fight and we
shall have come into our own."

"All this wonderful mad evening I have forgotten the cause," confessed
Winona.

"Mercy!" said Mrs. Plunkett. "Forgotten the cause? One hardly does that,
does one, without a reason?"

"I have reasons enough," said Winona, thinking of the new dancing
slippers and the frock.

"Surely, my dear, you who are so free and independent are not thinking
of ma