the whole world.

The New Girl's timing was perfect. She whisked through us, and before he
could so much as wiggle the fingers, she whipped a black gauntleted
glove on it and anyone could see that it fitted his hand perfectly.

This time our laughing beat the other. We collapsed and slopped our
drinks and pounded each other on the back and then started all over.

"_Ach, der Handschuh, Liebchen!_ Where'd she get it?" Erich gasped in my
ear.

"Probably just turned the other one inside out--that turns a left into a
right--I've done it myself," I wheezed, collapsing again at the idea.

"That would put the lining outside," he objected.

"Then I don't know," I said. "We got all sorts of junk in Stores."

"It doesn't matter, _Liebchen_," he assured me. "_Ach, der Handschuh!_"

All through it, Bruce just stood there admiring the glove, moving the
fingers a little now and then, and the New Girl stood watching him as if
he were eating a cake she'd baked.

* * * * *

When the hysteria quieted down, he looked up at her with a big smile.
"What did you say your name was?"

"Lili," she said, and believe you me, she was Lili to me even in my
thoughts from then on, for the way she'd handled that lunatic.

"Lilian Foster," she explained. "I'm English also. Mr. Marchant, I've
read _A Young Man's Fancy_ I don't know how many times."

"You have? It's wretched stuff. From the Dark Ages--I mean my Cambridge
days. In the trenches, I was working up some poems that were rather
better."

"I won't hear you say that. But I'd be terribly thrilled to hear the new
ones. Oh, Mr. Marchant, it was so strange to hear you call it
Passiondale."

"Why, if I may ask?"

"Because that's the way I pronounce it to myself. But I looked it up and
it's more like Pas-ken-DA-luh."

"Bless you! All the Tommies called it Passiondale, just as they called
Ypres Wipers."

"How interesting. You know, Mr. Marchant, I'll wager we were Recruited
in the same operation, summer of 1917. I'd got to France as a Red Cross
nurse, but they found out my age and were going to send me back."

"How old were you--are you? Same thing, I mean to say."

"Seventeen."

"Seventeen in '17," Bruce murmured, his blue eyes glassy.

It was real corny dialogue and I couldn't resent the humorous leer Erich
gave me as we listened to them, as if to say, "Ain't it nice,
_Liebchen_, Bruce has a silly little English schoolgirl to occupy him
between