en she smiled sweetly. "Dare, I'm proud of you."

That was a moment in which his former emotion seemed to stir for her.
Evidently she had lost track of something once memorable. She was
groping back for childish impressions. It was the only indication of
softness he had felt in her. How impossible to believe Lorna was only
fifteen! He could form no permanent conception of her. But in that
moment he sensed something akin to a sister's sympathy, some vague and
indefinable thought in her, too big for her to grasp. He never felt it
again. The serious sweet mood vanished.

"Hot dog! I've a brother with the _Croix de Guerre_. I'll swell up
over that. I'll crow over some of these Janes."

Thus she talked on while eating her supper. And Lane tried to eat
while he watched her. Presently he moved his chair near to the stove.
Lorna did not wait upon her mother. It was the mother who did the
waiting, as silently she moved from table to stove.

Lorna's waist was cut so low that it showed the swell of her breast.
The red color of her cheeks, high up near her temples, was not
altogether the rosy line of health and youth. Her eyebrows were only
faint, thin, curved lines, oriental in effect. She appeared to be
unusually well-developed in body for so young a girl. And the air of
sophistication, of experience that seemed a part of her manner
completely mystified Lane. If it had not been for the slangy speech,
and the false color in her face, he would have been amused at what he
might have termed his little sister's posing as a woman of the world.
But in the light of these he grew doubtful of his impression. Lastly,
he saw that she wore her stockings rolled below her knees and that the
edge of her short skirt permitted several inches of her bare legs to
be seen. And at that he did not know what to think. He was stunned.

"Daren, you served a while under Captain Thesel in the war," she said.

"Yes, I guess I did," replied Lane, with sombre memory resurging.

"Do you know he lives here?"

"I knew him here in Middleville several years before the war."

"He's danced with me at the Armory. Some swell dancer! He and Dick
Swann and Hardy MacLean sometimes drop in at the Armory on Saturday
nights. Captain Thesel is chasing Mrs. Clemhorn now. They're always
together.... Daren, did he ever have it in for you?"

"He never liked me. We never got along here in Middleville. And
naturally in the service when he was a captain and I only a
priva