he other side.

"I don't see why Derry should fight. I don't see why any man should.
I never did believe in getting into other people's fusses."

It was Alma Drew who said that. Nobody took Alma very seriously. She
was too pretty with her shining hair and her sea-green eyes, and her
way of claiming admiration.

Jean had recognised her when she first came in as the girl she had seen
descending from her motor car with Derry Drake on the night of the
Secretary's dinner. Alma again wore the diamond-encrusted comb. She
was in sea-green, which matched her eyes.

"If I were a man," Alma pursued, "I should run away."

There was a rustle of uneasiness about the table. In the morning
papers had been news of Italy--disturbing news; news from
Russia--Kerensky had fled to Moscow--there had been pictures of our men
in gas masks! It wasn't a thing to joke about. Even Alma might go too
far.

Ralph relieved the situation. "Oh, no, you wouldn't run away," he
said; "you don't do yourself justice, Alma. Before you know it you
will be driving a car over there, and picking me up when I fall from
the skies."

"Well, that would be--compensation--." Alma's lashes flashed up and
fluttered down.

But she turned her batteries on Ralph in vain. Jean McKenzie was on
the other side of him. It would never be quite clear to him why he
loved Jean. She was neither very beautiful nor very brilliant. But
there was a dearness about her. He hardly dared think of it. It had
gone very deep with him.

He turned to her. Her eyes were blazing. "Oh," she said, under her
breath, "how can she say things like that? If I knew a man who would
run away, I'd never speak to him."

"Of course. That's why I fell in love with you--because you had red
blood in your veins."

It was the literal truth. The first time that Ralph had seen Jean
McKenzie, he had been riding in Rock Creek Park. She, too, was on
horseback. It was in April. War had just been declared, and there was
great excitement. Jean, taking the bridle path over the hills, had
come upon a band of workers. A long-haired and seditious orator was
talking to them. Jean had stopped her horse to listen, and before she
knew it she was answering the arguments of the speaker. Rising a
little in her stirrups, her riding-crop uplifted to emphasize her
burning words, her cheeks on fire, her eyes shining, her hair blowing
under her three-cornered hat, she had clearly and crisply chall