d from fascinated intensity to rapture
and terror. She clung to Lane. She kissed him. She wept.

He told her how his ideal had been to fight for Helen, for Lorna, for
her, and all American girls. And then he talked about what he had come
home to--of the shock--the realization--the disappointment and grief.
He spoke of his sister Lorna--how he had tried so hard to make her
see, and had failed. He importuned Bessy to help him as only a girl
could. And lastly, he brought the conversation back to her and told
her bluntly what he thought of the vile verses, how she dragged her
girlhood pride in the filth and made of herself a byword for vicious
boys. He told her the truth of what real men thought and felt of
women. Every man had a mother. No war, no unrest, no style, no fad, no
let-down of morals could change the truth. From the dark ages women
had climbed on the slow realization of freedom, honor, chastity. As
the future of nations depended upon women, so did their salvation.
Women could never again be barbarians. All this modern license was a
parody of love. It must inevitably end in the degradation and
unhappiness of those of the generation who persisted on that downward
path. Hard indeed it would be to encounter the ridicule of girls and
the indifference of boys. But only through the intelligence and
courage of one could there ever be any hope for the many.

Lane sat there under the moonlit maples and talked until he was
hoarse. He could not rouse a sense of shame in Bessy, because that had
been atrophied, but as he closely watched her, he realized that his
victory would come through the emotion he was able to arouse in her,
and the ultimate appeal to the clear logic of her mind.

When the time came for him to go she stood before him in the clear
moonlight.

"I've never been so excited, so scared and sick, so miserable and
thoughtful in all my life before," she said. "Daren, I know now what a
soldier is. What you've seen--what you've done. Oh! it was grand!...
And you're going to be my--my friend.... Daren, I thought it was great
to be bad. I thought men liked a girl to be bad. The girls nicknamed
me Angel Bell, but not because I was an angel, I'll tell the world....
Now I'm going to try to be the girl you want me to be."

CHAPTER XIV

The time came when Daren had to make a painful choice. His sister
Lorna grew weary of his importunities and distrustful of his
espionage. One night she became violent and fl