boys fight--all this had been a mystery which he must take on
faith, with little help from the fisticuffs and brawls of school-days,
or even from the gigantic, agonizing closing-in of whole peoples, now
under way.

Yet Albert understood, and meant to take his share.

Who, indeed, as Raymond had once asked petulantly, could know what a boy
was going to be?

When Althea saw Albert in khaki, she _saw_ him: this time no
indifference, no fusing him with the crowd, no letting him fade away
unnoticed. If he had shaken before her on her hurdle-taker, she now
shook before him in his brown regimentals. It was as if, in an instant, he
had bolted from their familiar--their sometimes over-familiar--atmosphere.
He confused, he perturbed her: he was so like, yet so different; so close,
yet so remote. Was he a relative, of sorts--a relative in some loose
sense; or was he a strange young hero, with his face set toward yet
stranger scenes...?

"Come," said her father, who was close by, between the horse-block and
the syringa-bushes, "Albert isn't the only soldier on the battle-field.
Look at Tom, here!"

Althea turned her eyes dutifully toward her stalwart brother, who
humorously put up his stiffened fingers to the stiff brim of his hat;
and then she looked back at Albert.

III

McComas's bank, like others, put its office-machinery at the disposal of
the Government, when the first war-loan was in the making. It seemed a
small matter, at the beginning, but administrative organization was
taxed and clerical labors piled up hugely as the big, slow event moved
along through its various stages. This work in itself came almost to
seem an adequate contribution to the cause; surely in the mere
percentage of interest offered there was little to appeal to the
financial public, except perhaps the depositors of savings banks.
McComas himself felt no promptings to subscribe to this loan; but his
directors thought that a reasonable degree of participation was
"indicated." The bank's name went down, with the names of some others;
and the clerks who had been working over hours on the new and exacting
minutiae of the undertaking were given a chance to divert their savings
toward the novel securities. The bank displayed the Nation's flag, and
the flags of some of the allies. It all made a busy corner. McComas
thought of his son in khaki, and felt himself warming daily as a
patriot.

"We can do them up," he declared. The war, with him, was sti