have been pleasant, even cheerful, but this sprite,
swinging there and laughing at nothing whatever, almost frightened him.
For an awful moment he wondered if he had driven Marjorie mad. . . .
He had been unkind to her--hard on her, he knew.

Before he could stop himself he had rushed up the stairs to the little
balcony.

"Marjorie--Marjorie! What were you laughing about?" he demanded in
what seemed to her a very surprising way.

"Why, don't you want me to laugh?" she demanded in her turn, very
naturally.

"I--why--yes! But you frightened me, laughing all by yourself that
way."

"Oh, I see!" said Marjorie, looking a little embarrassed. "People
often look surprised when I forget, and do it on the street. I think
about things, and then when they seem funny to me I laugh. Don't you
ever have thoughts all by yourself that you laugh over, when you're
alone?"

Francis shook his head. He had a good mind, and a quick one, but he
did not use it as something to amuse himself with, as Marjorie did with
hers. He used it to work with.

"I beg your pardon for startling you," he said. "But----"

"I know. It looked queer. I was just thinking how different everybody
and everything is since the war. We're all so much more grown up, and
responsible. And I was hearing myself talk to Lucille's grandchildren,
and tell them all about the days before the war, when everybody said
they just didn't care. . . . Aren't things different?"

Francis nodded.

"Yes, they're different. I don't know exactly how, but they are. And
we are."

"Do you think you are?"

Francis sat down on the couch, looked at her, bright-eyed and grave,
and nodded again.

"Yes. All the values are changed. At least they are for me and most
of the men I came across. I don't think the women are so different;
you see, the American women didn't have anything much to change them,
except the ones who went over. We were in such a little while it
didn't have time to go deep."

He meant no disparagement, but Marjorie flared up.

"You mean me--and Lucille--and all the rest!" she accused him. "You're
quite wrong. That was just what I was telling Lucille's grandchildren.
We are different. Why, do you think I would have thought I owed you
anything--owed it to you to stay up here and drudge--before the war? I
never thought about being good, particularly, or honorable, or owing
things to people. Oh, I suppose I did, in a way, because I'd always
be