mean to be rich to match. That's in my plan. And so are you in
it. Practically you _are_ the plan. To carry it out calmly, without
ructions and feathers flying, I put your brother and my sister in the
way of falling in love. Dare didn't want to join the Beckett party and
didn't want to stay with it. Now, she does want to stay. Brian
distrusted me and was intrigued by Dare. Now, he gives me the benefit of
the doubt. And he has _no_ doubts of her---- That's a beautiful timbered
house, isn't it, Mr. Beckett? Yes, I was just telling Miss O'Malley that
this place seems to me the best one we've visited yet. I shall never
forget it, or the circumstances of seeing it, shall you, Miss O'Malley?
Don't you think, sir, she might let me call her 'Mary,' now we all know
each other so well? I'm 'Julian' to her brother and he's 'Brian' to me."

"I certainly do think she might," said Father Beckett, with that slow,
pleasant smile which Jim inherited from him.

CHAPTER XXI

It's late at night again--no, early to-morrow morning, just about the
hour when to-morrow's war-bread is being baked by to-night's war-bakers.
But it's good to burn the midnight electricity, because my body and
brain are feeling electric.

We have had the most astonishing day!

Of course, I expected that, because we were going to Noyon, and I
evacuated all unneeded thoughts and impressions (for instance, those
concerning the O'Farrells) to make room for a crowd of new ones, as we
did at the Hopital des Epidemies with convalescents, for an incoming
batch of patients. But I didn't count on private, personal
emotions--unless we blundered into an air raid somewhere!

You remember those authors we met once, who write together--the
Sandersons--and how they said if they ever dared put a real incident in
a book, people picked out that one as impossible? Well, this evening
just past reminded me of the Sandersons. We spent it at the War
Correspondents' Chateau, not far out of Compiegne: that is, we spent it
there if it was _real_, and not a dream.

* * * * *

I am the only one in Mother Beckett's confidence--I mean, about her
health. Even her husband doesn't know how this trip strains her
endurance, physical and mental. Indeed, he's the very one who _mustn't_
know. It's agreed between us that, if she feels hopelessly unfit for
any excursion, _I_ shall put on invalid airs and she will stop at home
to keep me company. Thus will be a