what the country had taken away, accompanied by Betty and the Baillys,
met the transport. Betty and Mrs. Bailly cried, and George shook his
heavy stick at them.

"See here! I'm not going to limp like this always."

Bailly encircled him with his thin arms.

"You're too old to play football, anyway, George."

George found himself wanting Betty's arms, their forgetfulness, their
understanding, their tenderness.

"When are you two going to be married?" he forced himself to ask.

Betty looked away, her white cheeks flushing, but Lambert hurried an
answer.

"As soon as you're able to get to Princeton. You're to be best man."

"Honoured."

So Lambert's crippling hadn't made any difference to Betty, but how did
Sylvia take it? He wanted to ask Lambert where she was, if anything had
happened to her, any other mad affair, now that the war was over, like
the one with Blodgett; but he couldn't ask, and no one volunteered to
tell him, and it wasn't until his visit to Oakmont, on his first leave
from the hospital, that he learned anything whatever about her, and that
was only what his eyes in a moment told him.

Lambert drove over and got George, explaining that his mother wanted to
see him.

"She'd have come to the dock," he said, "but Father these days is rather
hard to leave."

George went reluctantly, belligerently, for since his landing his
feeling of homesickness had increased with the realization that his
victorious country was more radically altered than he had fancied. The
ride, however, had the advantage of an uninterrupted talk with Lambert
which developed gossip that Blodgett, stuffed with business, hadn't yet
given him.

Goodhue and Wandel, for instance, were still abroad, holding down showy
jobs at the peace conference. Dalrymple, on the other hand, had been
home for months.

"Most successful war," Lambert told George. "Scarcely smelled fire, but
got a couple foreign decorations, and a promotion--my poor old leg
wasn't worth it, or yours, George, but what odds now? And as soon as the
show stopped at Sedan he was trotting back. Can't help admiring him,
for that sort of thing spells success, and he's steady as a church. Try
to realize that, and take a new start with him, for he's really likeable
when he keeps to the straight and narrow. Prohibition's going to fit in
very well, although I believe he's got himself in hand."

George stared at the ugly, familiar landscape, trying not to listen,
particularl