ich he interjected now and then in the midst of his father's
volubility.

"Germany, my mother, is dead," wailed the old man. "I have wept over
her grave; those who wage this war against humanity are bastards, the
real sons and daughters of that sweet old Germany are here in
America--they have come to their foster-mother, and they love her.

"If I had been younger," he went on, "I should have fought. My son
would have fought. But as it is we can make toys--and we shall say to
the Prussians across the sea, 'You have killed our mother--your people
are no longer our people, nor your God our God.'"

Ulrich took Emily home. She carried with her a Noah's Ark, and a
precious pot of cyclamen. She had chosen the cyclamen out of all the
rest. "It is such a cheerful thing blooming in my shop."

"There are other cheerful things in your shop," he told her.

As she met his smiling eyes, she smiled back, "Do you mean that I am a
cheerful thing?"

"A rose, mein Fraeulein, when your cheeks are red, like this."

Emily, alone at last in the Toy Shop, took off her hat in front of the
mirror and saw her red cheeks. She set the cyclamen safely in a warm
corner. The four elephants with their fragrant freight of violets made
an exotic and incongruous addition to the Christmas scene in the window.

Bruce McKenzie, coming in, asked, "Where did you get them?"

"The elephants? Ulrich Stoelle brought them. Do you know him?"

"Yes. But I didn't know that you did."

"His father makes toys. I lent him my white elephant, and he made
these--"

She spoke without self-consciousness, and McKenzie's mind was on his
own matters, so they swept away from the subject of Ulrich Stoelle.
"Emily," Bruce said, "I have my orders. Tomorrow at twelve I must
leave for France."

She gazed at him stupidly. "Tomorrow--?"

"Yes."

"But--Jean--?"

"I haven't told her. I don't know how to tell her."

"You won't be here for the wedding--?"

"No."

"It will break her heart."

"You needn't tell me that. Don't I know it?" His voice was sharp with
the tension of suppressed emotion.

He dropped into a chair, then jumped up and placed one for her. "Sit
down, sit down," he said, "and don't make me forget my manners.
Somehow this thing gets me as nothing has ever gotten me before. It
isn't that I mind going--I mind hurting--Jean--"

"You have always hated to hurt people," Emily said. "In some ways it's
a sign of weakness."

"Don't sco