perienced,
and, it must be confessed, extremely happy, "of course there's something
behind it. But the most that's behind it is a lot of fellows who want
without working what the other fellow's worked to get."

It was about that time that Lily was exchanged into the town near the
camp, and Willy Cameron suddenly found life a stale thing, and ashes in
the mouth. He finally decided that he had not been such a hopeless fool
as to fall in love with her, but that it would be as well not to see her
too much.

"The thing to do," he reasoned to himself, "is, first of all, not to
see her. Or only on Friday nights, because she likes the movies, and it
would look queer to stop." Thus Willy Cameron speciously to himself, and
deliberately ignoring the fact that some twenty-odd officers stood ready
to seize those Friday nights. "And then to work hard, so I'll sleep
better, and not lie awake making a fool of myself. And when I get a bit
of idiocy in the daytime, I'd better just walk it off. Because I've got
to live with myself a long time, probably, and I'm no love-sick Romeo."

Which excellent practical advice had cost him considerable shoe-leather
at first. In a month or two, however, he considered himself quite cured,
and pretended to himself that he was surprised to find it Friday again.
But when, after retreat, the band marched back again to its quarters
playing, for instance, "There's a Long, Long Trail," there was something
inside him that insisted on seeing the years ahead as a long, long
trail, and that the trail did not lead to the lands of his dreams.

He got to know that very well indeed during the winter that followed the
armistice. Because there was work to do he stayed and finished up, as
did Lily Cardew. But the hut was closed and she was working in the town,
and although they kept up their Friday evenings, the old intimacy was
gone. And one night she said:

"Isn't it amazing, when you are busy, how soon Friday night comes
along?"

And on each day of the preceding week he had wakened and said to
himself: "This is Monday--"--or whatever it might be--"and in four more
days it will be Friday."

In February he was sent home. Lily stayed on until the end of March. He
went back to his little village of plain people, and took up life again
as best he could. But sometimes it seemed to him that from behind every
fire-lit window in the evenings--he was still wearing out shoe-leather,
particularly at nights--somebody with