ared his imagination ran ahead of the facts and that perhaps
when his leg was well again he would see things more as they were, but
to her surprise when she turned to him to tell him this she found she
was obliged to look away at once again. She couldn't look at him. Fancy
that now, thought Anna-Felicitas, attentively gazing at her toes. And he
had such dear eyes; and such a dear, eager sort of face. All the more,
then, she reasoned, should her own eyes have dwelt with pleasure on him.
But they couldn't. "Dear me," she murmured, watching her toes as
carefully as if they might at any moment go away and leave her there.

"I know," said Elliott. "You think I'm talking fearful flowery stuff.
I'd have said Dear me at myself three years ago if I had ever caught
myself thinking in terms of stars and roses. But it's all the beastly
blood and muck of the war that does it,--sends one back with a rush to
things like that. Makes one shameless. Why, I'd talk to you about God
now without turning a hair. Nothing would have induced me so much as to
mention seriously that I'd even heard of him three years ago. Why, I
write poetry now. We all write poetry. And nobody would mind now being
seen saying their prayers. Why, if I were back at school and my mother
came to see me I'd hug her before everybody in the middle of the street.
Do you realize what a tremendous change that means, you little girl
who's never had brothers? You extraordinary adorable little lovely
thing?"

And off he was again.

"When I was small," said Anna-Felicitas after a while, still watching
her feet, "I had a governess who urged me to consider, before I said
anything, whether it were the sort of thing I would like to say in the
hearing of my parents. Would you like to say what you're saying to me in
the hearing of your parents?"

"Hate to," said Elliott promptly.

"Well, then," said Anna-Felicitas, gentle but disappointed. She rather
wished now she hadn't mentioned it.

"I'd take you out of earshot," said Elliott.

She was much relieved. She had done what she felt might perhaps be
regarded by Aunt Alice as her duty as a lady, and could now give herself
up with a calm conscience to hearing whatever else he might have to say.

And he had an incredible amount to say, and all of it of the most highly
gratifying nature. On the whole, looking at it all round and taking one
thing with another, Anna-Felicitas came to the conclusion that this was
the most agreeable a