mere thought of the hospital sent her mind flying off at a tangent.
Even the stage gave way for the moment to this new and all-absorbing
occupation. Never in her life had she done anything so interesting. The
escape from home, the personal contact with all those nice, jolly boys,
the excitement of being of service for the first time in her butterfly
existence, was intoxicating. She smiled now as she thought of the way
Graham's eager head always popped up the moment she entered the door,
and of how his face shone when she talked to him. After all, she told
herself, there _was_ something thrilling in having hands that had
captured a machine-gun laboriously threading tiny beads for her, in
having a soldier who had been decorated for courage stammer and blush
in her presence.

"Well," said the Captain, who had been lazily observing her, "aren't you
about through with your mental monologue?"

Eleanor roused herself with a start.

"Oh, I am sorry! I was thinking about my boys at the hospital. You can't
imagine how I hate to leave them!"

The answer was evidently not what the Captain had expected. As long as
his company of feminine admirers marched in adoring unison he was
indifferent to their existence; but let one miss step and he was
instantly on the alert.

"I haven't noticed any tears being shed over leaving me," he said, and
the aggrieved note in his voice promptly stirred her humor.

"Why should I mind leaving you? You don't need me."

"How do you know?"

She looked at him scoffingly.

"You don't need anything or anybody. You've got all you want in
yourself."

"I'll show you what I want!" he said, and, quickly bending toward her, he
kissed her on the cheek.

It was the merest brush of his lips, but it brought the color flaming
into her face and the lightning into her eyes. She had never been so
angry in her life, and it seemed to her an age that she sat there rigid
and indignant, suffocated by his nearness but powerless to move away.
Then she got the car stopped, and announced with great dignity that she
was nearly home and that she would have to ask him to get out.

Captain Phipps lazily descended from the car, then stood with elbows on
the ledge of the door and rolled a cigarette with great deliberation.
Eleanor, in spite of her wrath, could not help admiring the graceful,
conscious movement of his slender hands with their highly polished nails.
It was not until he had struck his match that he looked at