here."

"All right. Give my love to Miss Gabus."

She left the telephone and set about packing her things in a fury.
Polly reminded her that she had appointments for fittings at
dressmakers'.

"I never keep appointments," said Mamise. "You can cancel them for me
till this cruel war is over. Have the bills sent to me at the
shipyard, will you, dear? Sorry to bother you, but I've barely time to
catch my train."

Polly called her a once unmentionable name that was coming into
fashionable use after a long exile. Women had draped themselves in a
certain animal's pelt with such freedom and grace for so many years
that its name had lost enough of its impropriety to be spoken, and not
too much to express disapproval.

"You skunk!" said Polly. And Mamise laughed. Everything made her laugh
now; she was so happy that she began to cry.

"Why the crocodiles?" said Polly. "Because you're leaving me?"

"No, I'm crying because I didn't realize how unhappy I had always been
before I am as happy as I am now. I'm going to be useful at last,
Polly. I'm going to do something for my country."

She was sharing in that vast national ecstasy which is called
patriotism and which turns the flames of martyrdom into roses.

When Mamise reached the end of her journey she found Davidge waiting
for her at the railroad station with a limousine.

His manner was studiously insulting, but he was helplessly glad to see
her, and the humiliation he had suffered from her failure to keep her
engagements with him in Washington was canceled by the tribute of her
return to him. The knot of his frown was solved by the mischief of her
smile. He had to say:

"Why didn't you meet me at luncheon?"

"How could I prevent the Potomac from putting the old bridge out of
commission?" she demanded. "I got there in time, but they wouldn't let
me across, and by the time I reached the hotel you had gone, and I
didn't know where to find you. Heaven knows I tried."

The simplicity of this explanation deprived him of every excuse for
further wrath, and he was not inspired to ask any further questions.
He was capable of nothing better than a large and stupid:

"Oh!"

"Wait till you hear what I've got to tell you."

But first he disclosed a little plot of his own with a comfortable
guiltiness:

"How would you like," he stammered, "since you say you have news--how
would you like--instead of going to your shanty--I've had a fire built
in it--but--how would you