ful pity in her eyes, for the remnant--the torn-up
remnant--who had fought and suffered for her. And the remnant, well,
he was way back in the Land of Has-been. Did I not say that the pin
was at the back of Molly's waist?

The woods were just at their best, with the glorious yellow and brown
of early autumn, touched with the gold of the setting sun. In a
clearing a boy was sitting on a fallen tree-trunk, puffing furiously at
a cigarette. Twice had the smoke gone the wrong way, and once had it
got into his eyes; but when one is aged sixteen such trifles are merely
there to be overcome. The annoying thing was that he was still engaged
in absorbing the overflowing moisture from his eyes, with a
handkerchief of doubtful cleanliness, when a girl came into the glade
and started to laugh.

"There's no good pretending, Billy. The smoke has got into your eyes,
and your handkerchief is dirty, and you aren't impressing me in the
slightest."

"Hallo, Molly! I wasn't expecting you so soon." The smoker looked a
little sheepish.

"Indeed! Then if I'm not wanted, I'll go away again."

"No, no, Molly--don't do that." The boy rose eagerly, and went towards
her. Then he stopped awkwardly, and putting his hands in his pocket,
fidgeted with his feet.

"Well--why not?" The girl smiled provokingly. "And what are you
hopping about for? Are you going to try to learn to dance, as I
suggested?"

"I will if you will teach me, Molly--dear." He took a step forward
eagerly--and then paused again, aghast at the audacity of that "dear."
Something in the cool, fresh young girl standing so easily in front of
him, smiling with faint derision, seemed to knock on the head all that
carefully thought out plan which had matured in his mind during the
silent watches of the previous night. It had all seemed so easy then.
Johnson major's philosophy on life in general and girls in particular
was one thing in the abstract, and quite another when viewed in the
concrete, with a real, live specimen to practice on. And yet Johnson
major was a man of much experience--and a prefect of some standing at
school.

"My dear fellows," he had said on one occasion when holding the floor
in his study, "I don't want to brag, and _we_ do not speak about these
things." The accent on the _we_ had been wonderful. It implied
membership of that great body of youthful dare-devils to whom the wiles
of women present no terrors. "But women, my dear fellows,