you," she said, and her extended hand put the pressure
of the seal of sincerity on her words. "I've wanted to thank you. You
can scarcely know what you did for us. Stubby's the only man in the
family, you know."

MacRae smiled.

"Why," he said easily, "little things like that were part of the game.
Stubb used to pull off stuff like that himself now and then."

"Anyway, we can thank God it's over," Mrs. Abbott said fervently.
"Pardon me,--my daughter, Mr. MacRae."

Nelly Abbott was small, tending to plumpness like her mother. She was
very fair with eyes of true violet, a baby-doll sort of young woman, and
she took possession of Jack MacRae as easily and naturally as if she had
known him for years. They drifted away in a dance, sat the next one out
together with Stubby and a slim young thing in orange satin whose talk
ran undeviatingly upon dances and sports and motor trips, past and
anticipated. Listening to her, Jack MacRae fell dumb. Her father was
worth half a million. Jack wondered how much of it he would give to
endow his daughter with a capacity for thought. A label on her program
materialized to claim her presently. Stubby looked after her and
grinned. MacRae looked thoughtful. The girl was pretty, almost
beautiful. She looked like Dolores Ferrara, dark, creamy-skinned,
seductive. And MacRae was comparing the two to Dolores' advantage.

Nelly Abbott was eying MacRae.

"Tessie bores you, eh?" she said bluntly.

MacRae smiled. "Her flow of profound utterance carries me out of my
depth, I'm afraid," said he. "I can't follow her."

"She'd lead you a chase if you tried," Stubby grinned and sauntered
away to smoke.

"Is that sarcasm?" Nelly drawled. "I wonder if you are called Silent
John because you stop talking now and then to think? Most of us don't,
you know. Tell me," she changed the subject abruptly, "did you know
Norman Gower overseas?"

"He was an officer in the battalion I went over with," MacRae replied.
"I went over in the ranks, you see. So I couldn't very well know him.
And I never met him after I transferred to the air service."

"I just wondered," Nelly went on. "I know Norman rather well. It has
been whispered about that he pulled every string to keep away from the
front,--that all he has done over there is to hold down cushy jobs in
England. Did you ever hear any such talk?"

"We were too busy to gossip about the boys at home, except to envy
them." MacRae evaded direct reply, and Nelly d