old Rhine castle were big and bare
and cold, with stone floors.

Bianca wore a little tea-gown of a warm blue woolen material and had a
tea table with a tray upon it just in front of her.

She was pouring tea for her guest at the moment he made his last speech.

"Oh, there has been nothing serious the matter with me, Carlo," she
returned. "I was simply tired and have been having a delightful rest. I
believe when I arrived I said that I should hate to be ill in this
dreary old building, but since things so seldom turn out as one expects
I have really enjoyed it. Besides, I have promised Sonya that as soon as
it is possible I shall go back to the United States and to school. The
Red Cross experience in Europe has been a wonderful one, but now, as I
am no longer useful here I must take up the duty, I turned my back upon.
It is not going to be easy, Carlo, to settle down to a school girl's
life after the excitement of war work in Europe. Yet I have the
consolation of realizing that I am only going to do what many of our
soldiers will do. Lots of the younger men have told me that if their
families can afford to send them to college on their return they feel
the need of education as they never felt it before coming abroad."

Bianca extended a tea cup to her visitor.

"Is this the way you like your tea, Carlo? Perhaps your taste has
changed, but I remember this is the way you liked it in the past."

"But my tastes don't change, Bianca. It is your mistake to believe they
do, neither my tastes in tea nor in friends ever alter."

At this Carlo and Bianca both laughed, although with a slight
embarrassment.

"I am going back home too, Bee, very soon," the young man added. "This
is one of the many things I wanted to tell you this afternoon, besides
finding out that you were all right again. I talked things over with
Colonel Winfield weeks ago and told him I was getting pretty restless
and anxious to return to my work in the United States. I explained to
him that a singer can't wait for his career as well as other men, since
a voice does not always last a long time. However, I think this argument
did not make much of an impression upon the old Colonel, but something
or other must have, because he asked for an honorable discharge for me
and I'm to go home when it arrives. I think the Colonel's chief reason
was that I am not much good as a soldier here in Coblenz. He needs men
like Major Hersey and Sergeant Hackett. Hackett is