he
opportunities George foresaw for dragging money by sharp reasoning from
the reconstruction period. He applied himself to exchange. From their
position they could run wild in the stock market at little risk, but
there were big things to be made out of exchange, about which the
cleverest men didn't seem to know anything worth a penny in any
currency.

Everyone noticed his recovery, and everyone congratulated him except
Bailly. When George went down to Betty's wedding the long tutor met him
at the station, crying out querulously:

"What's happened to you?"

George laughed.

"Got over the war reaction, I guess."

"What the deuce did you go to war for at all then?" Bailly asked.

"Haven't found that out myself yet," George answered, "but I know I
wouldn't go to another, even if they'd have me."

He grimaced at his injured foot.

"And they're going to give you some kind of a medal!" Bailly cried.

"I didn't ask for it," George said, "but I daresay a lot of people, you
among them, went down to Washington and did."

Bailly was a trifle uncomfortable.

"See here," George said. "I don't want your old medal, and I don't
intend to be scolded about it. I suppose I've got to rush right out to
the Alstons."

"Let's stop at the club," Bailly proposed. "People want to see you.
We'll fight the war over with the veterans."

"Damn the war!" George said.

Mrs. Bailly, when he paused for a moment at the house in Dickinson
Street, attacked him, and quite innocently, from a different direction.

"It was the wish of my life, George, that you should have Betty, and you
might have had. I can't help feeling that."

"You're prejudiced," George laughed.

He went to the Alstons, nevertheless, almost unwillingly, and he delayed
his arrival until the last minute. The intimate party had gathered for a
dinner and a rehearsal that night. The wedding was set for the next
evening.

The Tudor house had an unfamiliar air, as though Betty already had taken
from it every feature that had given it distinction in George's mind.
And Betty herself was caught by all those detailed considerations that
surround a girl, at this vital moment of her life, with an atmosphere
regal, mysterious, a little sacred. So George didn't see her until just
before dinner, or Sylvia, who was upstairs with her. Lambert and
Blodgett were about, however, and so was Dalrymple. George was glad
Lambert had asked Blodgett to usher; he owed it to him, but he was
an