ly use was an ancestor in uniform to the present
situation? It would have been better to have inherited Quaker blood.
Derry smiled whimsically as he thought how different he might have felt
if there had been benignant men in gray with broad-brimmed hats,
staring down.

But to grant a man an inheritance of fighting blood, and then deny him
the opportunity to exercise his birthright, was a sort of grim joke
which he could not appreciate.

For dessert a great dish of fruit was set before him. He chose a peach!

Peaches in November! The men in the trenches had no peaches, no
squabs, no mushrooms, no avacados--for them bully beef and soup cubes,
a handful of dates, or by good luck a bit of chocolate.

He left the peach untasted--he had a feeling that he might thus,
vicariously, atone for the hardships of those others who fought.

After dinner he walked downtown. Passing Dr. McKenzie's house he was
constrained to loiter. There were lights upstairs and down. Was Jean
McKenzie's room behind the two golden windows above the balcony? Was
she there, or in the room below, where shaded lamps shone softly among
the shadows?

He yearned to go in--to speak with her--to learn her thoughts--to read
her heart and mind. As yet he knew only the message of her beauty. He
fancied her as having exquisite sensibility, sweetness, gentleness,
perceptions as vivid as her youth and bloom.

The front door opened, and Jean and her father came out. Derry's heart
leaped as he heard her laugh. Then her clear voice, "Isn't it a
wonderful night to walk, Daddy?" and her father's response, "Oh, you
with your ecstasies!"

They went briskly down the other side of the street. Derry found
himself following, found himself straining his ear for that light
laugh, found himself wishing that it were he who walked beside her,
that her hand was tucked into his arm as it was tucked into her
father's.

Their destination was a brilliantly illumined palace on F Street, once
a choice little playhouse, now given over to screen productions. The
house was packed, and Jean and her father, following the flashlight of
the usher, found harbor finally in a box to the left of the stage.
Derry settled himself behind them. He was an eavesdropper and he knew
it, but he was loath to get out of the range of that lovely laughter.

Yet observing the closeness of their companionship he felt himself
lonely--they seemed so satisfied to be together--so sufficient wit