was clean and tidy.

"I am getting dippy," she said as she looked at herself in the mirror
in the buffet; "I've got to get out--this quiet life gets me. I'll go
down to the _dansant_ this afternoon--no use--I can't stand being
alone."

She put on her white suit, and dabbing rouge on her cheeks and
penciling her eyes, she went forth into the sunshiny streets.

She stopped to look at a display of sport suits in a window, also to
see her own reflection in a mirror placed for the purpose among the
suits.

Suddenly a voice sounded at her elbow: "Some kid, eh? Looking good
enough to eat!"

She turned around and met the admiring gaze of Sergeant Edward Loftus
Brown, recruiting sergeant of the 19-th, with whom she had been to the
theater a few nights before. She welcomed him effusively.

"Come on and have something to eat," he said. "I got three recruits
to-day--so I am going to proclaim a half-holiday."

They sat at a table in an alcove and gayly discussed the people who
passed by. The President of the Red Cross came in, and at a table
across the room hastily drank a cup of tea and went out again.

"She came to see me to-day," said Mrs. Tweed, "and gave me to
understand that they were not any too well pleased with me--I am too
gay for a soldier's wife! And they do not approve of you."

Sergeant Brown smiled indulgently and looked at her admiringly through
his oyster-lidded eyes. His smile was as complacent as that of the
ward boss who knows that the ballot-box is stuffed. It was the smile
of one who can afford to be generous to an enemy.

"Women are always hard on each other," he said soothingly; "these
women do not understand you, Trixie, that's all. No person understands
you but me." His voice was of the magnolia oil quality.

"Oh, rats!" she broke out. "Cut that understanding business! She
understands me all right--she knows me for a mean little selfish
slacker who is going to have a good time no matter what it costs. I
have been like a bad kid that eats the jam when the house is burning!
But remember this, I'm no fool, and I'm not going to kid myself into
thinking it is anything to be proud of, for it isn't."

Sergeant Brown sat up straight and regarded her critically. "What have
you done," he said, "that she should call you down for it? You're
young and pretty and these old hens are jealous of you. They can't
raise a good time themselves and they're sore on you because all the
men are crazy about you."