lice resumed her placid tone. "You're staying at the Palmers', aren't
you?"

"No, not now. I've taken an apartment. I'm going to live here; I'm
permanent. Didn't I tell you?"

"I think I'd heard somewhere that you were," she said. "Do you think
you'll like living here?"

"How can one tell?"

"If I were in your place I think I should be able to tell, Mr. Russell."

"How?"

"Why, good gracious!" she cried. "Haven't you got the most perfect
creature in town for your--your cousin? SHE expects to make you like
living here, doesn't she? How could you keep from liking it, even if you
tried not to, under the circumstances?"

"Well, you see, there's such a lot of circumstances," he explained; "I'm
not sure I'll like getting back into a business again. I suppose most
of the men of my age in the country have been going through the same
experience: the War left us with a considerable restlessness of spirit."

"You were in the War?" she asked, quickly, and as quickly answered
herself, "Of course you were!"

"I was a left-over; they only let me out about four months ago," he
said. "It's quite a shake-up trying to settle down again."

"You were in France, then?"

"Oh, yes; but I didn't get up to the front much--only two or three
times, and then just for a day or so. I was in the transportation
service."

"You were an officer, of course."

"Yes," he said. "They let me play I was a major."

"I guessed a major," she said. "You'd always be pretty grand, of
course."

Russell was amused. "Well, you see," he informed her, "as it happened,
we had at least several other majors in our army. Why would I always be
something 'pretty grand?'"

"You're related to the Palmers. Don't you notice they always affect the
pretty grand?"

"Then you think I'm only one of their affectations, I take it."

"Yes, you seem to be the most successful one they've got!" Alice said,
lightly. "You certainly do belong to them." And she laughed as if at
something hidden from him. "Don't you?"

"But you've just excused me for that," he protested. "You said nobody
could be blamed for my being their third cousin. What a contradictory
girl you are!"

Alice shook her head. "Let's keep away from the kind of girl I am."

"No," he said. "That's just what I came here to talk about."

She shook her head again. "Let's keep first to the kind of man you are.
I'm glad you were in the War."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know." She was quiet a moment, for she wa