ak, then backed, flushed, and
acted as if something had frightened her badly.

"Is she as afraid of me as all that?" thought Allan. Wallis must have
given her a lurid account of how he had behaved. His quick impulse was
to reassure her.

"Well, Phyllis, my dear, you certainly didn't bother me with plans
_this_ time!" he said, smiling. "This is a bully surprise!"

"I--I'm glad you like it," said his wife shyly, still backing away.

"Of course he'd like it," said Mrs. De Guenther's kind staccato voice
behind him. "Kiss your husband, and tell him he's welcome home, Phyllis
child!"

Now, Phyllis was tired with much hurried work, and overstrung. And
Allan, lying there smiling boyishly up at her, Allan seen for the first
time in these usual-looking gray man-clothes, was like neither the
marble Crusader she had feared nor the heartbroken little boy she had
pitied. He was suddenly her contemporary, a very handsome and attractive
young fellow, a little her senior. From all appearances, he might have
been well and normal, and come home to her only a little tired, perhaps,
by the day's work or sport, as he lay smiling at her in that friendly,
intimate way! It was terrifyingly different. Everything felt different.
All her little pieces of feeling for him, pity and awe and friendliness
and love of service, seemed to spring suddenly together and make
something else--something unplaced and disturbing. Her cheeks burned
with a childish embarrassment as she stood there before him in her
ruffled pink gown. What should she do?

It was just then that Mrs. De Guenther's crisply spoken advice came.
Phyllis was one of those people whose first unconscious instinct is to
obey an unspoken order. She bent blindly to Allan's lips, and kissed him
with a child's obedience, then straightened up, aghast. He would think
her very bold!

But he did not, for some reason. It may have seemed only comforting and
natural to him, that swift childish kiss, and Phyllis's honey-colored,
violet-scented hair brushing his face. Men take a great deal without
question as their rightful due.

The others closed around him then, welcoming him, laughing at the
surprise and the way he had taken it, telling him all about it as if
everything were as usual and pleasant as possible, and the present state
of things had always been a pleasant commonplace. And Wallis began to
serve the picnic supper.

XI

There were trays and little tables, and the food itsel