it. The thought of Fifth Avenue--the very idea of going back to all
that familiar routine, social and business, makes me positively ill.
What a dull place this world will be when we're all at peace again!"

"We won't be at peace for a long, long while," said Ilse, smiling. She
lifted a goblet in her big, beautifully shaped hand and drained it
with the vigorous grace of a Viking's daughter.

"You think the war is going to last for years?" asked Estridge.

"Oh, no; not this war. But the other," she explained cheerfully.

"What other?"

"Why, the greatest conflict in the world; the social war. It's going
to take many years and many battles. I shall enlist."

"Nonsense," said Brisson, "you're not a Red!"

The girl laughed and showed her snowy teeth: "I'm one kind of Red--not
the kind that sold Russia to the boche--but I'm very, very red."

"Everybody with a brain and a heart is more or less red in these
days," nodded Palla. "Everybody knows that the old order is
ended--done for. Without liberty and equal opportunity civilisation is
a farce. Everybody knows it except the stupid. And they'll have to be
instructed."

"Very well," said Brisson briskly, "here's to the universal but
bloodless revolution! An acre for everybody and a mule to plough it!
Back to the soil and to hell with the counting house!"

They all laughed, but their brimming glasses went up; then Estridge
rose to re-wind the victrola. Palla's slim foot tapped the parquet in
time with the American fox-trot; she glanced across the table at
Estridge, lifted her head interrogatively, then sprang up and slid
into his arms, delighted.

While they danced he said: "Better go light on that champagne, Miss
Dumont."

"Don't you think I can keep my head?" she demanded derisively.

"Not if you keep up with Ilse. You're not built that way."

"I wish I were. I wish I were nearly six feet tall and beautiful in
every limb and feature as she is. What wonderful children she could
have! What magnificent hair she must have had before she sheared it
for the Woman's Battalion! Now it's all a dense, short mass of
gold--she looks like a lovely boy who requires a barber."

"Your hair is not unbecoming, either," he remarked, "--short as it is,
it's a mop of curls and very fetching."

"Isn't it funny?" she said. "I sheared mine for the sake of Mother
Church; Ilse cut off hers for the honour of the Army! Now we're
both out of a job--with only our cropped heads to show fo