unfasten
the necklace. He thought of the evil that her eyes saw in him, and in
the rest of the world. He thought of Jean, and of her white young
dreams.

"No," he said, as if to himself, "not that--"

She laid her hand on his arm, "Go by yourself--there's a big work over
there, and you can do it best--alone."

He looked down at her, smiling a little, but smiling sadly. "If Jean's
mother had lived I should not have been such a weathercock. Will you
write to me--promise me that you will write."

"Of course," cheerfully. "Oh, by the way, Julia tells me that dinner
will be at three, and that two soldier boys are coming. I rather think
I shall like that."

He ran his fingers through his crinkled hair. "What a lot you get out
of life, Emily."

"What makes you say that?"

"Little things count so much with you. You are like Jean. She is in
seventh Heaven over a snowstorm--or a chocolate soda. It's the youth
in her--and it's the youth, too, in you--"

She liked that, and flushed a little. "Perhaps it is because there
have been so few big things, Bruce, that the little ones look big."

He had a fleeting sense of what Emily would be like with some big thing
in her life--how far would it swing her from her sedate course?

"You have done me a lot of good," he said heartily when she left him to
go upstairs to Jean.

Jean was still in bed. "I must run down to the shop," Emily informed
her. "But I'll be back in plenty of time to dress for dinner."

"Darling--" Jean reminded her, "you must go to church."

"Of course. I shall stop on my way down."

"Pray for me, Emily." She reached out her arms. Emily came to them
and they clung together. "I am so happy, darling--" Jean whispered,
"but there isn't anything to tell, not really--yet--Emily--"

When Emily had gone, Jean got out her memory books. She had made of
breakfast a slight affair. How could one eat in the face of such
astounding events. Already this morning flowers had arrived for her,
heather and American Beauties. And Derry had written on his card, "The
heather because of you--the roses because of the day--"

There were two hours on her hands before church. She could dress in
one--the intervening time must be filled.

Her memory books were great fat volumes kept on a shelf by themselves,
and forming a record of everything that had happened to her since her
first day at boarding school. They were in no sense diaries, nor could
they be ca