ane, earnestly. "You've said a
mouthful, as the slang word goes. I'm sort of surprised, you remember.
Bessy, you're not a girl whose head is full of excelsior. You've got
brains. You can think.... Now, if you really like me--and I believe
you--try to understand this. I've been away so long. All is changed. I
don't know how to take girls. I'm ill--and unhappy. But if I could be
your friend and could help you a little--please you--why it'd be good
for me."

"Daren, they tell me you're going to die," she returned, breathlessly.
Her glance was brooding, dark, pregnant with purple fire.

"Bessy, don't believe all you hear. I'm not--not so far gone yet."

"They say you're game, too."

"I hope so, Bessy."

"Oh, you make me think. You must believe me a pill. I wanted you
to--to fall for me hard.... That bunch of sapheads have spoiled me,
I'll say. Daren, I'm sick of them. All they want to do is mush. I like
tennis, riding, golf. I want to do things. But it's too hot, or this,
or that. Yet they'll break their necks to carry a girl off to some
roadhouse, and dance--dance till you're melted. Then they stop along
the river to go bathing. I've been twice. You see, I have to sneak
away, or lie to mother and say I've gone to Gail's or somewhere."

"Bathing, at night?" queried Lane, curiously.

"Sure thing. It's spiffy, in the dark."

"Of course you took your bathing suits?"

"Hot dog! That would be telling."

Lane dropped his head and studied the dust at his feet. His heart beat
thick and heavy. Through this girl the truth was going to be revealed
to him. It seemed on the moment that he could not look into her eyes.
She scattered his wits. He tried to erase from his mind every
impression of her, so that he might begin anew to understand her. And
the very first, succeeding this erasure, was a singular idea that she
was the opposite of romantic.

"Bessy, can you understand that it is hard for a soldier to talk of
what has happened to him?"

"I'll say I can," she replied.

"You're sorry for me?" he went on, gently.

"Sorry!... Give me a chance to prove what I am, Daren Lane."

"Very well, then. I will. We'll make a fifty-fifty bargain. Do you
regard a promise sacred?"

"I think I do. Some of the girls quarrel with me because I get sore,
and swear they're not square, as I try to be. I hate a liar and a
quitter."

"Come then--shake hands on our bargain."

She seemed thrilled, excited. The clasp of her little hand sh