where Charlie Sands was serving his country.

During all this time Mr. Burton never mentioned Hilda but once, and that
was to state that he had learned Captain Weber was a widower.

"Not that it makes any difference to me," he said. "She can marry him
tomorrow as far as I'm concerned. I've forgotten her, practically. If I
marry it will be one of these French girls. They can cook anyhow, and
she can't. Her idea of a meal is a plate of fudge."

"He's really breaking his heart for her," Aggie confided to me later.
"Do you notice how thin he is? And every time he looks at the moon he
sighs."

"So do I," I said tartly; "and I'm not in love either. Ever since that
moonlight night when that fool of a German flew over and dropped a bomb
onto the best layer cake I've ever baked I've sighed at the moon too."

But he was thinner; and, when the weather grew cold and wet and we
suggested flannels to him as delicately as possible, he refused to
consider them.

"I'd as soon have pneumonia as not," he said. "It's quick and easy,
and--anyhow we need them to cover the engine on cold nights."

It was, I believe, at the end of the seventh week that we drew in one
night at a small village within sound of the guns. We limped in, indeed,
for we had had one of our frequent blowouts, and had no spare tire.

Scattering as was our custom, we began a search for an extra tire, but
without results. There was only one machine in the town, and that
belonged to General Pershing. We knew it at once by the four stars. As
we did not desire to be interrogated by the commander-in-chief we drew
into a small alleyway behind a ruined house, and Aggie and I cooked a
Spanish omelet and arranged some lettuce-and-mayonnaise sandwiches.

Tish had not returned, but Mr. Burton came back just as I was placing
the meal on the folding table we carried for the purpose, and we saw at
once that something was wrong. He wore a look he had not worn since we
left Paris.

"Leg, probably," I said in an undertone to Aggie. He was subject to
attacks of pain in the milk leg.

But Aggie's perceptions were more tender.

"Hilda, most likely," she said.

However, we were distracted by the arrival of Tish, who came in with her
customary poise and unrolled her dinner napkin with a thoughtful air.
She commented kindly on the omelet, but was rather silent.

At the end of the meal, however, she said: "If you will walk up the
road past the Y. M. C. A. hut, Mr. Burton, it is j