little--abrupt!"

CHAPTER IX

Impressions

Josephine waited languidly while Kate chose a second-best cushion from
the couch and, lifting the bandaged foot as gently as might be, placed
it, with many little pats and pulls, under the afflicted member.
Josephine screwed her lips into a soundless expression of pain, smiled
afterwards when Kate glanced at her commiseratingly, and pulled a long,
dark-brown braid forward over her chest.

"Do you want tea, Phenie?--or would you rather have chocolate to-day? I
can make chocolate just as easy as not; I think I shall, anyway. Buddy
is so fond of it and--"

"Is that man here yet?" Josephine's tone carried the full weight of her
dislike of him.

"I don't know why you call him 'that man,' the way you do," Kate
complained, turning her mind from the momentous decision between tea
and chocolate. "Ford's simply fine! Chester thinks there's no one like
him; and Buddy just tags him around everywhere. You can always,"
asserted Kate, with the positiveness of the person who accepts
unquestioningly the beliefs of others, living by faith rather than
reason, "depend upon the likes and dislikes of children and dogs, you
know."

"Has the swelling gone out of his eyes?" Josephine inquired pointedly,
with the irrelevance which seemed habitual to her and Kate when they
conversed.

"Phenie, I don't think it's kind of you to harp on that. Yes, it has, if
you want to know. He's positively handsome--or will be when the--when
his nose heals perfectly. And I don't think that's anything one should
hold against Ford; it seems narrow, dear."

"The skinned place?" Josephine's tone was perfectly innocent, and her
fingers were busy with the wide, black bow which becomingly tied the end
of the braid.

"Phenie! If you hadn't a sprained ankle, and weren't such a dear in
every other respect, I'd shake you! It isn't fair. Because Ford was
pounced upon by a lot of men--sixteen, Chester told me--"

"I suppose he counted the dead after the battle, and told Ches
truthfully--"

"Phenie, that sounds catty! When you get down on a man, you're perfectly
unmerciful, and Ford doesn't deserve it. You shouldn't judge men by the
narrow, Eastern standards. I know it's awful for a man to drink and
fight. But Ford wasn't altogether to blame. They got him to drinking
and," she went on with her voice lowered to the pitch at which women are
wont to relate horrid, immoral things, "--I wouldn't be surprised if
t