thy in her tone touched MacRae deeply. His
eyes shifted for a moment to the uneasy sea. The lump in his throat
troubled him again. Then he faced her again.

"Thanks," he said slowly. "I dare say you mean it, although I don't know
why you should. But I'd rather not talk about that. It's done."

"I suppose that's the best way," she agreed, although she gave him a
doubtful sort of glance, as if she scarcely knew how to take part of
what he said. "Isn't it lovely after the storm? Pretty much all the
civilized world must feel a sort of brightness and sunshine to-day, I
imagine."

"Why?" he asked. It seemed to him a most uncalled-for optimism.

"Why, haven't you heard that the war is over?" she smiled. "Surely some
one has told you?"

He shook his head.

"It is a fact," she declared. "The armistice was signed yesterday at
eleven. Aren't you glad?"

MacRae reflected a second. A week earlier he would have thrown up his
cap and whooped. Now the tremendously important happening left him
unmoved, unbelievably indifferent. He was not stirred at all by the
fact of acknowledged victory, of cessation from killing.

"I should be, I suppose," he muttered. "I know a lot of fellows will
be--and their people. So far as I'm concerned--right now--"

He made a quick gesture with his hands. He couldn't explain how he
felt--that the war had suddenly and imperiously been relegated to the
background for him. Temporarily or otherwise, as a spur to his emotions,
the war had ceased to function. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to be
let alone, to think.

Yet he was conscious of a wish not to offend, to be courteous to this
clear-eyed young woman who looked at him with frank interest. He
wondered why he should be of any interest to her. MacRae had never been
shy. Shyness is nearly always born of acute self-consciousness. Being
free from that awkward inturning of the mind Jack MacRae was not
thoroughly aware of himself as a likable figure in any girl's sight.
Four years overseas had set a mark on many such as himself. A man cannot
live through manifold chances of death, face great perils, do his work
under desperate risks and survive, without some trace of his deeds being
manifest in his bearing. Those tried by fire are sure of themselves, and
it shows in their eyes. Besides, Jack MacRae was twenty-four,
clear-skinned, vigorous, straight as a young fir tree, a handsome boy in
uniform. But he was not quick to apprehend that these things st