he never dreamt of getting
them at Cambridge, yet now he really thinks he has a chance! They tried
him the other day, and he kicked a goal. Dear old Bob! If he does get
them he will be a Blue and a half, he says. He writes so happily,
Duncan! I have so much to be thankful for--to thank you for!"

Yes, Catherine was good to look at; there was no doubt of it; and this
time she was not wearing any hat. Discoursing of the lad, she was
animated, eager, for once as exclamatory as her pen, with light and life
in every look of the thin intellectual face, in every glance of the
large, intellectual eyes, and in every intonation of the keen dry voice.
A sweet woman; a young woman; a woman with a full heart of love and
sympathy and tenderness--for Bob! Yet, when she thanked me at the end,
either upon an impulse, or because she thought she must, her eyes fell,
and again I detected that slight embarrassment which was none the less a
revelation, to me, in Catherine Evers, of all women in the world.

"We won't speak of that," I said, "if you don't mind. I am not proud of
it."

Catherine scanned me more narrowly. I knew her better with that look.
"Then tell me about yourself, and do sit down," she said, drawing a
chair near the fire, but sitting on the other side of it herself. "I
needn't ask you how you are. I never saw you looking so well. That comes
of going right away and not hurrying back. I think you were so wise!
But, Duncan, I am sorry to see both sticks still! Have you seen your man
since you came back?"

"I have."

"Well?"

"I'm afraid there's no more soldiering for me."

Catherine seemed more than sorry and disappointed; she looked quite
indignant with the eminent specialist who had finally pronounced this
opinion. Was I sure he was the very best man for that kind of thing? She
would have a second opinion, if she were me. Very well, then, a third
and fourth! If there was one man she pitied from the bottom of her
heart, it was the man without a profession or an occupation of some
kind. Catherine looked, however, as though her pity were almost akin to
horror.

"I have a trifle, luckily," I said. "I must try something else."

Catherine stared into the fire, as though thinking of something else for
me to try. She seemed full of apprehension on my account.

"Don't you worry about me," I went on. "I came here to talk about
somebody else, of course."

Catherine almost started.

"I've told you about Bob," she said, w