where, if you'll look for it."

Margaret went up to put the children to bed. Emily, promising to come
back, withdrew to write a letter. The old man sat alone.

He limped into the blue room, and gazed indifferently around on its
treasures. Once he had cared for these plates and cups--his quest for
rare porcelains had been eager.

And now he did not care. The lovely glazed things were for the eye,
not for the heart. He would have given them all for the touch of a
loving hand, for a voice that grew tender--.

There was the patter of little feet on the polished floor.
Margaret-Mary in a diminutive blue dressing gown and infinitesimal
slippers, with her curls brushed tidily up from the back of her neck
and skewered with a hairpin, came over and laid her hand on his knee.
"Dus a 'itte 'tory?" she asked ingratiatingly. She adored stories.

He picked her up, and she curled herself into the corner of his arm.

Her mother found her there. "Mother's naughty little girl," she said,
"to run away--"

"Let her stay," the General begged. "Somehow my heart needs her
tonight."

CHAPTER XXVIII

SIX DAYS

Four days of Derry's furlough had passed, four palpitating days, and now
the hours that the lovers spent together began to take on the poignant
quality of coming separation. Every moment counted, nothing must be
lost, nothing must be left unsaid, nothing must be left undone which
should emphasize their oneness of thought and purpose.

They read together, they walked together, they rode together, they went
to church together. If they included the General in their plans it was
because they felt his need of them, not theirs of him. They lived in a
world created to survive for ten days and then to collapse like a pricked
bubble--

And it was because of the dread of collapse that Jean began to plan a
structure of remembrance which should endure after Derry's departure.

"Darling," she said, "there are only six days--What shall we do with
them?"

THE FIFTH DAY

It was Sunday, and in the morning they went dutifully to church. They
ate their luncheon dutifully with the whole family, and motored dutifully
afterwards with the General. Then at twilight they sought the Toy Shop.

They had it all to themselves, and they had told Bronson that they would
not be home for dinner. So Jean made chocolate for Derry as she had made
it on that first night for his father. They toasted war bread on the
electric grill,