ut obligations. Still I can enjoy the
music at the swimming-pool with a free conscience; because I'm sending
over all the money I can spare. . . . How did you reach the conclusion
that you could go?"

"_Could_ go?"

"Yes. Of course you've no complication in your life that should keep
you from going. Well, I'm glad of that."

"It seems to me that if anyone is free to go, I am."

He smiled upon me, somewhat too playfully for my comfort, and shook his
head slowly. "So Fulton and I were right about the year's probation.
I'm delighted. How soon did you and Lucy find out that absence
_doesn't_ make the heart grow fonder?"

"Oh," I said, "it isn't _that_. What has that to do with it? There's
a year to be got over, and fighting's the most agreeable and the
quickest way I can think of just now."

My father looked disappointed.

"I hoped you had got over caring. And--you haven't?"

For a few moments I met his eyes. But only for a few moments. He
didn't laugh. "I'm glad," he said simply.

I tried to explain exactly how I felt.

"Of course not seeing her or hearing from her--why--you see--but when I
do see her it will all come right back. I _know_ that."

He smiled a little grimly. "Normally," he said, "there are years of
pleasant living before you. But not if you get yourself killed--not if
you lose an arm or a leg, or come back with half your face shot off,
and your one remaining ear stone deaf from cannon fire. But anyway I'm
glad the Fulton business is over. Your love has cooled and, even if
Lucy's hasn't--there could never be anything between you now?"

He was speaking sarcastically. He went on in the same vein: "The year
over--even if you found that Lucy was still wrapped up in you, that her
happiness depended on you, you would not, of course, feel that you were
under any obligation to _pretend_ that you still cared for her and to
do a gentleman's best to make her happy."

"I get your point, father," I said; "and of course if she still cares,
I must try to make good. Of course I must."

"Suppose," he said, no longer sarcastically, but very earnestly,
"suppose the year is up. Suppose Lucy still cares, and as a reward for
her faithfulness and her patience there is nothing but your grave
'somewhere in France'? This is why I asked you if you _could_ go."

"I'll look like a fool," I said. "I've told several people that I was
surely going."

"That's too bad," he said; "but you'll have to st