and ate small
mountains of toast. They were healthily happy and quite unexpectedly
hungry, and the fact that they were sitting alone at the table gave the
whole thing an enchanting atmosphere of domesticity.

"Ralph spoiled it the other day," Jean confided, "I had everything
ready for you."

"How I hated him when I came in."

"Oh, did you?"

"Of course," and then they both laughed, and the old gentleman in the
corner said to the woman who sat with him, "Let's get away. I can't
stand it."

"I don't see why."

"You wouldn't see. But there was a time once when I loved a girl like
that."

Drusilla and Captain Hewes coming in, after a canter through the Park,
broke in upon the Paradise of the young pair.

Drusilla in riding togs still managed to preserve the picturesque
quality of her beauty--a cockade in her hat, a red flower in her lapel,
a blue tie against her white shirt.

"And she does it so well," Derry said, as the two came towards them.
"In most women it would have an air of bad taste, but Drusilla never
goes too far--"

Captain Hewes in tow showed himself a captured man. "I didn't know
that American women could ride until Miss Gray showed me--today. It
was rippin'."

Drusilla laughed. "It is worth more than the ride to have you say
'rippin'' like that."

"She makes fun of me," the Captain complained; "some day I shall take
her over to England and show her how our gentle maidens look up to me."

"Your gentle maidens," Drusilla stated, "are driving ambulances or
making munitions. When the Tommies come marching home again they will
find comrades, not clinging vines."

"And they'll jolly well like it," said the big Englishman; "a man wants
a woman who understands--"

This was law and gospel to Derry. "Of course. Jean, dear, may I tell
Drusilla?"

"As if you had to tell me," Drusilla scoffed; "it is written all over
you."

"Is it?" Derry marvelled.

"It is. The whole room is lighted up with it. You are a lucky man,
Derry,"--for a moment her bright eyes were shadowed--"and Jean is a
lucky girl." She leaned down and kissed the woman that Derry loved.
"Oh, you Babes in the Wood--"

"By Jove," the Captain ejaculated, much taken by the little scene, "do
you mean that they are going to be married?"

"Rather," Drusilla mocked him. "But don't shout it from the housetops.
Derry is a public personage, and it might get in the papers."

"It is not to get in the papers yet," Derry said. "D