r to read the writing on the wall?"
And the only times that his national pride had been able to raise its
head beneath the weight of shame and foreboding were those when he
passed the windows of Red Cross Depots and caught sight of a roomful of
good and noble women feverishly at work on bandages; when he read of
the keen and splendid training voluntarily undergone by the far-sighted
men who were making Plattsburg the nucleus of an officers' training
corps, when he was told how many of his young and red-blooded
fellow-countrymen had taken up arms with the Canadian contingents or
had slipped over to France as ambulance men. What would he not have
given to be young again!

He heaved a great sigh and turned back to the precious little woman who
had placed her life into his hands for love. The hoarse alarming voices
receded into the distance, leaving their curious echo behind.

"What were we talking about?" he asked. "Oh, ah, yes. The house. Lil,
during the few days that I have to be in the city, let's find the
house, let's nose around and choose the roof under which you and I will
spend all the rest of our honeymoon. What do you say, dear?"

"I'd love it, Geordie; I'd just love it. A little house, smaller than
this, with windows that catch the sun, quite near the Park, so that we
can toddle across and watch the children playing. Wouldn't that be
nice? And now I think I'll ring for some one to show me Joan's room and
creep in and suggest that she gets up."

But there was no need. The door opened, and Joan came in, with eyes
like stars.

IX

Three o'clock that afternoon found the Harleys still in Martin's house,
with Mrs. Harley fidgetting to get George out for a walk in order that
she might enjoy an intimate, mother-talk with Joan, and Joan
deliberately using all her gifts to keep him there in order to avoid it.

Lunch had been a simple enough affair as lunches go, lifted above the
ordinary ruck of such meals by the 1906 Chateau Latour and the
Courvoisier Cognac from the cellar carefully stocked by Martin's
father. From the psychological side of it, however, nothing could well
have been more complicated. George had not forgotten his reception by
the Ludlows that day of his ever-to-be-remembered visit of
inspection--the cold, satirical eyes of Grandmother, the freezing
courtesy of Grandfather, and the silent, eloquent resentment of the
girl who saw herself on the verge of desertion by the one person who
made