time, but it was behind him now.
Ahead there lay high adventure, and here, beside him in the dusk, was
the girl of his heart. She believed in him. Work to do and a woman who
believed in a fellow--that was life.

"Aren't you cold?" he asked, and drew the gaudy sweater tenderly around
her shoulders.

CHAPTER XLV

The fact that Audrey Valentine, conspicuous member of a conspicuous
social group that she was, had been working in the machine-shop of
the Spencer munitions works at the time of the explosion was in itself
sufficient to rouse the greatest interest. When a young reporter,
gathering human-interest stories about the event from the pitiful
wreckage in the hospitals, happened on Clare Gould, he got a
feature-story for the Sunday edition that made Audrey's own world,
reading it in bed or over its exquisite breakfast-tables, gasp with
amazement.

For, following up Clare's story, he found that Audrey had done much
more than run toward the telephone. She had reached it, had found the
operator gone, and had succeeded, before the roof fell in on her, in
calling the fire department and in sending in a general alarm to all the
hospitals.

The reporter found the night operator who had received the message. He
got a photograph of her, too, and, from the society file, an old one
of Audrey, very delicate and audacious, and not greatly resembling
the young woman who lay in her bed and read the article aloud, between
dismay and laughter, to old Terry Mackenzie.

"Good heavens, Terry," she said. "Listen! I had heard the explosion,
but did not of course know what it was. And then I got a signal, and
it was the Spencer plant. A sweet Southern voice said, very calmly,
'Operator, this is important. Listen carefully. There has been an
explosion at the Spencer plant and the ruins are on fire. There will
probably be more explosions in a minute. Send in a general fire-alarm,
and then get all the ambulances and doctors--' Then there was another
explosion, and their lines went out of commission. I am glad she is not
dead. She certainly had her nerve."

"Fame at last, Audrey!" said old Terry, very gently.

"It's shameless!" But she was a little pleased, nevertheless. Not at the
publicity. That was familiar enough. But that, when her big moment came,
she had met it squarely.

Terry was striding about the room. His visits were always rather
cyclonic. He moved from chair to chair, leaving about each one an
encircling ring of ci