new Overseas Club, which, still being in process of incubation,
occupied temporary quarters on Madison Avenue.

Officers fresh from abroad and still in uniform predominated; tunics
were gay with service and wound chevrons, citation cords, stars,
crosses, strips of striped ribbon.

There was every sort of head-gear to be seen there, too, from the
jaunty overseas _bonnet de police_, piped in various colours, to the
corded campaign hat and leather-visored barrack-cap.

Few cavalry officers were in evidence, but there were plenty of spurs
glittering everywhere--to keep their owners' heels from slipping off
the desks, as the pleasantry of the moment had it.

* * * * *

Estridge went directly to a telephone booth, and presently got his
connection.

"It's John Estridge, as usual," he said in a bantering tone. "How are
you, Ilse?"

"John! I'm so glad you called me! Thank you so much for the roses!
They're exquisite!--matchless!----"

"Not at all!"

"What?"

"If you think they're matchless, just hold one up beside your cheek
and take a slant at your mirror."

"I thought you were not going to say such things to me!"

"I thought I wasn't."

"Are you alone?" She laughed happily. "Where are you, Jack?"

"At the Overseas Club. I stopped on my way from the hospital."

"Y--es."

A considerable pause, and then Ilse laughed again----a confused, happy
laugh.

"Did you think you'd--come over?" she inquired.

"Shall I?"

"What do _you_ think about it, Jack?"

"I suppose," he said in a humourous voice, "you're afraid of that
tendency which you say I'm beginning to exhibit."

"The tendency to drift?"

"Yes;--toward those perilous rocks you warned me of."

"They _are_ perilous!" she insisted.

"You ought to know," he rejoined; "you're sitting on top of 'em like a
bally Lorelei!"

"If that's your opinion, hadn't you better steer for the open sea,
John?"

"Certainly I'd better. But you look so sweet up there, with your
classical golden hair, that I think I'll risk the rocks."

"Please don't! There's a deadly whirlpool under them. I'm looking down
at it now."

"What do you see at the bottom, Ilse? Human bones?"

"I can't see the bottom. It's all surface, like a shining mirror."

"I'll come over and take a look at it with you."

"I think you'll only see our own faces reflected.... I think you'd
better not come."

"I'll be there in about half an hour," he said ga