n would still care for him. It was fore-ordained, as fixed
as the stars.

So he went back to her, and when she saw him coming, the burden of her
distress fell from her. The world became once more hers and Derry's,
with everybody else shut out. When they had supper with the
Witherspoon party joining them, and Ralph palely repentant beside her,
she even, to the utter bewilderment of her father, smiled at him, and
talked as if their quarrel had never been.

Drusilla watched her with more than a tinge of envy. She was aware
that her own vivid charm was shadowed and eclipsed by the white flame
of Jean's youth and innocence. "And he loves her," she thought with a
tug of her heartstrings; "he loves her, and there'll never be anything
like it for him again."

She sat rather silently between Captain Hewes and Dr. McKenzie. Dr.
McKenzie had always admired Drusilla, but tonight his attention was
rather more than usual fixed upon her by a remark which Captain Hewes
had made when the two men had stood alone together watching the
dancers. "I have seen very little of American women--but to me
Drusilla Gray seems the supreme type."

"She is very attractive."

"She is more than that. She is inspiring, the embodiment of your best
ideals. When she sings one wonders that all men have not fought for
democracy."

That was something to say of a woman. Doctor McKenzie wondered if it
could be said of his own daughter. Set side by side with Drusilla,
Jean seemed a childish creature, unstable, swayed by the emotion of the
moment. Yet her fire matched Drusilla's, her dreams outran Drusilla's
dreams.

Two officers passed the table.

"How any man can keep out of it," Drusilla said. "Some day I shall put
on a uniform and pass for a boy--"

"Why not go over as you are?"

"They won't let me now. But some day they will. I can drive a
car--there ought to be a place for me."

"There is one for me," he said, "and my decision must be made tonight.
They are asking me to head a hospital staff in France. A letter came
this morning, and I've got to answer it."

Her eyes went to the flame-white maiden on the other side of the table.
"What does Jean say?"

"I haven't asked her. She wouldn't keep me back. But I am all she
has, and it would hurt."

"It would hurt. But you are not all that she has--you might as well
try to sweep back the sea as to stop what is going on over there. I
have been sitting here green with envy. Oh,