real.
Presently he would wake up to the old familiar ring of his alarm
clock, and gradually all the outlines of his bedroom would shape
themselves to his recovered senses... There would stand Helen by her
dressing table, stooping down to the mirror's level as she popped her
thick braids under her pink boudoir cap... In a few minutes the first
whiffs of coffee would come floating in from the kitchenette. Then he
would crawl slowly out from the warm bedclothes and stretch himself
comfortably and give a sudden dash for the bathroom and his cold
plunge. There would follow breakfast and the walk over the hill down
to the office of Ford, Wetherbee & Co. in a mist-golden morning. And
he would hear again the exchange of greetings, and find himself
replying to the inevitable question:

"Well, what's new?"

With the equally inevitable answer:

"Not a thing in the world!"

Some one was shaking him. He gave a quick gasp that ended in a groan
as he opened his eyes. Monet was bending over him.

"You've been asleep," his companion said. "Come, it's time to go in...
The bell for supper has rung... And you were dreaming, too ... I knew
that because you smiled!"

Fred Starratt grasped Monet's hand fervently.

"It was good of you to keep watch," he murmured.

Monet answered with a warm pressure. And at that moment something deep
and indefinable passed between them ... a silent covenant too precious
for words.

Fred Starratt rose to his feet.

"Let us go in!" he said.

* * * * *

At supper Fred Starratt nibbled at some dry bread and drank another
strong draught of tea. But he had to force himself to even this scant
compromise with expediency. There followed smoking in the lavatory and
at seven o'clock the call to turn in. Fred scurried confidently to his
cell-like room ... he was quite ready for solitude.

An attendant was moving about. "You sleep in the first dormitory
to-night," he explained to Fred. "It's at the end of the hall."

Fred turned away in fresh despair.

Before the door of the first dormitory a number of men were
undressing. Monet was in the group and a newspaper man named Clancy
that Fred had met that afternoon. Fred stood a moment in indecision.

"You'll have to strip out here," Monet said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Just leave your clothes in a pile close against the wall."

Fred obeyed. The rest of the company regarded him with sinister
curiosity. Except for Monet and