you not to eat it, and she just stood with her hands flat on
your desk, you know the way she does--I hate her hands--and she said
that of course if I was going to make a fuss about it she wouldn't have
the steak, but that it was simply a thing she couldn't understand. The
steak was there, why not eat it? And I said it was because of the
psychological effect on other people. And she said we were having too
much psychology and not enough common sense in this war!

"Well, after that, I went to my Red Cross meeting at the church. I
expected to have lunch there, but I changed my mind and came home.
Hilda was at the table alone, and, Daddy, she was eating the steak, the
whole of it--." She paused to note the effect of her revelation.

"Well?"

"She was eating it when all the world needs food! She made me think of
those dreadful creatures in the fairy books. She's--she's a ghoul--"

"My dear."

"A ghoul. You should have seen her, with great chunks of bread and
butter."

"Hilda has a healthy appetite."

"Of course you defend her."

"My dear child--"

"Oh you do, Daddy, always, against me--and I'm your daughter--"

She wept a tear or two into her muff, then raised her eyes to find him
regarding her quizzically. "Are you going to spoil my ride?"

"You are spoiling mine."

"We won't quarrel about it. And we'll stop at Small's. Shall it be
roses or violets, to-day, my dear?"

She chose violets, as more in accord with her pensive mood, lighting
the bunch, however, with one red rose. The question of Hilda was not
settled, but she yielded as many an older woman has yielded--to the
sweetness of tribute--to man's impulse to make things right not by
justice but by the bestowal of his bounty.

From the florist's, they went to Huyler's old shop on F Street, where
the same girl had served Jean with ice-cream sodas and hot chocolate
for fifteen years. Administrations might come and administrations go,
but these pleasant clerks had been cup-bearers to them all--Presidents'
daughters and diplomats' sons--the sturdy children of plain
Congressmen, the scions of noble families across the seas.

It was while Jean sat on a high stool beside her father, the sunshine
shining on her through the wide window, that Derry Drake, coming down
Twelfth, saw her!

Well, he wanted a lemonade. And the fact that she was there in a gray
squirrel coat and bunch of violets with her copper-colored hair shining
over her ears wasn't g