ated so earnestly
that he went off into another gale of affectionate laughter.

And then he addressed himself to the joyous task of planning a luncheon
that they would never of them either forget, he said. He took the
waiter into their confidence to a certain degree, and from then on a
circle of silent and admiring service inclosed them.

"But you needn't think we're going to linger over it, Marjorie," he
informed her. "I want to get up to where you live, and be alone with
you."

"Of course," said Marjorie mechanically, saying a little prayer to the
effect that she needed a great deal of help to get through this
situation, and she hoped it would come in sight soon. She could not
eat very much. It was all very good, and the band played ravishingly
to the ears of Francis, who sent buoyantly across and demanded such
tunes as he was fondest of. There was one which they played to which
he sang, under his breath, a profane song which ran in part:

"And we'll all come home
And get drunk on ginger pop--
For the slackers voted the country dry
While we went over the top."

And then, when the meal was two-thirds over, Marjorie wished she hadn't
offered up any prayers for help to get through the situation. Because
softly up to their table strolled a tall, thin young man with a cane,
gray silk gloves, and a dreamy if slightly nervous look, and said
discontentedly, "Marjorie Ellison! How wonderful to find you here!
You will let me sit down at your table, won't you, and meet your
soldier-friend?"

If Marjorie had never written to Francis about Bradley Logan it would
have been all right, quite a rescue, in fact. But in those too fatally
discursive letters; the letters which had come finally to feel like a
sympathetic diary with no destination, she had rather enlarged on him.
He had been admiring her at disconnected intervals ever since she first
met him. He had not been able to get in the army because of some
mysterious neurasthenic ailment about which he preserved a hurt
silence, as to details, but mentioned a good deal in a general way. It
kept him from making engagements, it made him unable to go long
distances; Marjorie had described all the scattered hints about it in
her letters to Francis, who had promptly written back that undoubtedly
the little friend had fits; and referred to him thereafter, quite
without malice, as, "your fit-friend." She had an insane terror, as
she introduced him, lest she