e
didn't offer her hand, and all she said was:

"I was quite sure you would come back."

"You knew I had to," he laughed.

Then he sharpened his ears, for she was telling her brother something
about Betty's having telephoned she was driving over to take Lambert,
Dalrymple, and herself to Princeton.

No. The war had changed her less than any one George had seen. She was
as beautiful, as unforgiving, as intolerant; and he guessed that it was
she and not Betty who had made the arrangement which would take her away
from him.

"George will come, too," Lambert began.

"Afraid I'm not up to it," George refused, dryly.

At Betty's wedding, however, she would have to be with him, for it
developed during this nervous chatter that they would share the honours
of the bridal party.

So, helplessly, he had to watch her go, and for a moment he felt as if
he had had a strong tonic, for she alone had been able to give him an
impression that the world hadn't altered much, after all.

The reaction came in the quiet hours following. He was at first
resentful that Mrs. Planter should accompany him on the painful walk the
doctors had ordered him, like Old Planter, to take daily. He had wanted
to go back to the little house, highest barrier of all which Sylvia
would never let him climb. Then, glancing at the quiet woman, he squared
his shoulders. Suppose Wandel had been right! Here was a test. At any
rate, the war was a pretty large and black background for so tiny a high
light. Purposefully, therefore, he carried out his original purpose. By
the side of Mrs. Planter he limped toward the little house. They didn't
say much. It wasn't easy for him to talk while he exercised, and perhaps
she understood that.

Even before the clean white building shone in the sun through the trees
he heard a sound that made him wince. It was like a distant drum, badly
played. Then he understood what it was, and his boyhood, and the day of
awakening and revolt, submerged him in a hot wave of shame. He could see
his mother rising and bending rhythmically over fine linen which emerged
from dirty water, making her arms look too red and swollen. He glanced
quickly at Mrs. Planter to whose serenity had gone the upward effort of
many generations. Just how appalling, now that war had mocked life so
dreadfully, now that a pitiless hand had a moment ago stripped all
pretence from the world, was the difference between them?

It was the woman at the tub, curiou