ty,
and the night's revelry that was to follow. Poor Chris! He had thrown
everything away, even life. The world perhaps was better that these
mutilees below had given what they had. But Chris had gone like a pebble
thrown into a lake. He had made his tiny ripple and had vanished.

Then she remembered that she was not quite fair. Perhaps she had never
been fair to Chris. He had given all he had. He had not lived well, but
he had died well. And there was something to be said for death. For the
first time in her healthy life she wondered about death, standing here
on the Crillon balcony, with the city gone mad with life below her.
Death was quiet. It might be rather wonderful. She thought, if Clay did
not want her, that perhaps it would be very comforting just to die and
forget about everything.

From beneath the balcony there came again, lustily the shouts of a dozen
doughboys hauling a German gun:

"Hail! hail! the gang's all here!
What the hell do we care?
What the hell do we care?
Hail, hail, the gang's all here!
What the hell do we care now?"

Then, that night, Clay came. The roistering city outside had made of her
little sitting-room a sort of sanctuary, into which came only faintly
the blasts of horns, hoarse strains of the "Marseillaise" sung by
an un-vocal people, the shuffling of myriad feet, the occasional
semi-hysterical screams of women.

"Mr. Spencer is calling," said the concierge over the telephone, in his
slow English. And suddenly a tight band snapped which had seemed to bind
Audrey's head all day. She was calm. She was herself again. Life was
very wonderful; peace was very wonderful. The dear old world. The good
old world. The kind, loving, tender old world, which separated people
that they might know the joy of coming together again. She wanted to
sing, she wanted to hang over her balcony and teach the un-vocal French
the "Marseillaise."

Yet, when she had opened the door, she could not even speak. And Clay,
too, after one long look at her, only held out his arms. It was rather
a long time, indeed, before they found any words at all. Audrey was the
first, and what she said astounded her. For she said:

"What a dreadful noise outside."

And Clay responded, with equal gravity: "Yes, isn't it!"

Then he took off his overcoat and put it down, and placed his hat on the
table, and said, very simply: "I couldn't stay away. I tried to."

"You hadn't a chance in the w