ife, in love with Emily, and
with the stinging blood of young manhood coursing through his veins.

Another minute and the boy had passed on up the broad street--the fine,
flag-bedecked street--just one of a hundred service hats bobbing in
rhythmic motion like sandy waves lapping a shore and flowing on.

Then he disappeared altogether.

Emily was clinging to Jo. She was mumbling something, over and over.
"I can't. I can't. Don't ask me to. I can't let him go. Like that.
I can't."

Jo said a queer thing.

"Why, Emily! We wouldn't have him stay home, would we? We wouldn't
want him to do anything different, would we? Not our boy. I'm glad he
enlisted. I'm proud of him. So are you glad."

Little by little he quieted her. He took her to the car that was
waiting, a worried chauffeur in charge. They said good-by, awkwardly.
Emily's face was a red, swollen mass.

So it was that when Jo entered his own hallway half an hour later he
blinked, dazedly, and when the light from the window fell on him you
saw that his eyes were red.

Eva was not one to beat about the bush. She sat forward in her chair,
clutching her bag rather nervously.

"Now, look here, Jo. Stell and I are here for a reason. We're here to
tell you that this thing's going to stop."

"Thing? Stop?"

"You know very well what I mean. You saw me at the milliner's that
day. And night before last, Ethel. We're all disgusted. If you must
go about with people like that, please have some sense of decency."

Something gathering in Jo's face should have warned her. But he was
slumped down in his chair in such a huddle, and he looked so old and
fat that she did not heed it. She went on. "You've got us to
consider. Your sisters. And your nieces. Not to speak of your
own----"

But he got to his feet then, shaking, and at what she saw in his face
even Eva faltered and stopped. It wasn't at all the face of a fat,
middle-aged sport. It was a face Jovian, terrible.

"You!" he began, low-voiced, ominous. "You!" He raised a great fist
high. "You two murderers! You didn't consider me, twenty years ago.
You come to me with talk like that. Where's my boy! You killed him,
you two, twenty years ago. And now he belongs to somebody else.
Where's my son that should have gone marching by today?" He flung his
arms out in a great gesture of longing. The red veins stood out on his
forehead. "Where's my son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miser