off and on, I had
mothered him. I tapped at the door.

"Can't come in!" he cried.

"Where've you been?"

"Wait there a minute--and mum--. I'll tell you."

So I went and sat in the window looking down the road, until he came,
spick and span in white flannels, with his head not yet dried from the
douching he had taken.

"See here," he whispered, "I know you can keep a secret. Well, I've
been out toward Cambrai--only sixty miles--and I am tuckered. There
was a battle there last night--English driven back. They are only two
days' march away, and oh! the sight on the roads. Don't let's talk of
it."

In spite of myself, I expect I went white, for he exclaimed: "Darn it,
I suppose I ought not to have told you. But I had to let off to some
one. I don't want to tell the Doctor. In fact, he forbade my going
again."

"Is it a real German victory?" I asked.

"If it isn't I don't know what you'd call it, though such of the
English as I saw were in gay enough spirits, and there was not an
atmosphere of defeat. Fact is--I kept out of sight and only got stray
impressions. Go on down now, or they'll guess something. I'm not going
to say a word--yet. Awful sorry now I told you. Force of habit."

I went down. I had hard work for a few minutes to throw the impression
off. But the garden was lovely, and tea being over, we all busied
ourselves in rifling the flowerbeds to dress the dinner table. If we
were going in two days, where was the good of leaving the flowers to
die alone? I don't suppose that it was strange that the table
conversation was all reminiscent. We talked of the old days: of
ourselves when we were boys and girls together: of old Papanti, and
our first Cotillion, of Class Days, and, I remembered afterward, that
not one of us talked of ourselves except in the days of our youth.

When the coffee came out, we looked about laughing to see which of the
three of us left was to tell the story. The Lawyer coughed, tapped
himself on his chest, and crossed his long legs.

* * * * *

It was a cold December afternoon.

The air was piercing.

There had been a slight fall of snow, then a sudden drop in the
thermometer preceded nightfall.

Miss Moreland, wrapped in her furs, was standing on a street corner,
looking in vain for a cab, and wondering, after all, why she had
ventured out.

It was somewhat later than she had supposed, and she was just
conventional enough, in spite of her po