laughed heartily.

"I'm confirmed in my opinion that you won't need me after another change
of bandages," he said. "We've a couple of hundred thousand cases much
worse than yours to tend, and Mademoiselle Lannes will look after you
today. She has watched over you, I understand, because you're a friend
of her brother, the great flying man, Philip Lannes."

"Yes," said John, "that's it, of course."

Julie herself said nothing.

Surgeon Delorme passed through the bar of brilliant light and
disappeared, his place being taken by a gigantic figure with grizzled
hair, and the stern face of the thoughtful peasant, the same Antoine
Picard who had been left as a guardian over the little house beyond the
Seine. John closed his eyes, that is nearly, and caught the glance that
the big man gave to Julie. It was protecting and fatherly, and he knew
that Antoine would answer for her at any time with his life. It was one
remnant of feudalism to which he did not object. He opened his eyes wide
and said:

"Well, my good Picard, perhaps you thought you were going to look at a
dead American, but you are not. Behold me!"

He sat up and doubled up his arm to show his muscle and power. Picard
smiled and offered to shake hands in the American fashion. He seemed
genuinely glad that John had returned to the real world, and John
ascribed it to Picard's knowledge that he was Lannes' friend.

Julie said some words to Picard, and with a little _au revoir_ to John,
went away. John watched her until she was out of sight. He realized
again that young French girls were kept secluded from the world, immured
almost. But the world had changed. Since a few men met around a table
six or seven weeks before and sent a few dispatches a revolution had
come. Old customs, old ideas and old barriers were going fast, and might
be going faster. War, the leveler, was prodigiously at work.

These were tremendous things, but he had himself to think about too, and
personality can often outweigh the universe. Julie was gone, taking a
lot of the light with her, but Picard was still there, and while he was
grizzled and stern he was a friend.

John sat up quite straight and Picard did not try to keep him from it.

"Picard," he said, "you see me, don't you?"

"I do, sir, with these two good eyes of mine, as good as those in the
head of any young man, and fifty is behind me."

"That's because you're not intellectual, Picard, but we'll return to our
lamb chops. I