e. The first of the
American troops to be sent to France were leaving. Michigan Boulevard
was a billowing, surging mass: Flags, pennants, bands, crowds. All the
elements that make for demonstration. And over the whole--quiet. No
holiday crowd, this. A solid, determined mass of people waiting patient
hours to see the khaki-clads go by. Three years of indefatigable reading
had brought them to a clear knowledge of what these boys were going to.

"Isn't it dreadful!" Stell gasped.

"Nicky Overton's only nineteen, thank goodness."

Their car was caught in the jam. When they moved at all it was by
inches. When at last they reached Jo's apartment they were flushed,
nervous, apprehensive. But he had not yet come in. So they waited.

No, they were not staying to dinner with their brother, they told the
relieved houseman. Jo's home has already been described to you. Stell
and Eva, sunk in rose-colored cushions, viewed it with disgust, and some
mirth. They rather avoided each other's eyes.

"Carrie ought to be here," Eva said. They both smiled at the thought of
the austere Carrie in the midst of those rosy cushions, and hangings,
and lamps. Stell rose and began to walk about, restlessly. She picked up
a vase and laid it down; straightened a picture. Eva got up, too, and
wandered into the hall. She stood there a moment, listening. Then she
turned and passed into Jo's bedroom. And there you knew Jo for what he
was.

This room was as bare as the other had been ornate. It was Jo, the
clean-minded and simple-hearted, in revolt against the cloying luxury
with which he had surrounded himself. The bedroom, of all rooms in any
house, reflects the personality of its occupant. True, the actual
furniture was paneled, cupid-surmounted, and ridiculous. It had been the
fruit of Jo's first orgy of the senses. But now it stood out in that
stark little room with an air as incongruous and ashamed as that of a
pink tarleton danseuse who finds herself in a monk's cell. None of those
wall-pictures with which bachelor bedrooms are reputed to be hung. No
satin slippers. No scented notes. Two plain-backed military brushes on
the chiffonier (and he so nearly hairless!). A little orderly stack of
books on the table near the bed. Eva fingered their titles and gave a
little gasp. One of them was on gardening. "Well, of all things!"
exclaimed Stell. A book on the War, by an Englishman. A detective story
of the lurid type that lulls us to sleep. His shoes