he could not
explain, for she sat staring gloomily at the wall above the bed, then she
said abruptly: "Well, I must be going. Good-by if I don't see you again!"

"But you will," announced Quin fiercely. "You are going to see me next
Sunday at the Martels'. I'll be there if I land in the guard-house for
it."

"Why, your time's up Saturday, isn't it? Oh! I forgot those three extra
days. Captain Phipps has got to let you off. He will if I tell him to."

At this something quite unexpected and elemental surged up in Quin. He
forgot the amenities that he had taken such pains to observe in Miss
Bartlett's presence, he entirely lost sight of the social gap that lay
between them, and blurted out with deadly earnestness:

"Say, are you his girl?"

This had the effect of bringing Miss Bartlett promptly to her feet, and
the next instant poor Quin was saying in an agony of regret:

"I'm sorry, Miss Bartlett. I didn't mean to be nervy. Honest, I didn't.
Wait a minute--_please_----"

But she was gone, leaving him to spend the rest of the afternoon searching
for a phrase sufficiently odious to express his own opinion of himself.

CHAPTER 4

Eleanor Bartlett, speeding home from the hospital with Captain Phipps
beside her, repeated Quin's question to herself more than once. Up to the
present her loves, like her friendships, had been entirely episodic. She
had gone easily from one affair to another not so much from fickleness as
from growth. What she wanted on Monday did not seem in the least
desirable on Saturday, and it was a new and disturbing sensation to have
the same person dominating her thoughts for so many consecutive days. If
her relations with the young officer from Chicago were as platonic as she
would have herself and her family believe, why had she allowed the affair
to arrive at a stage that precipitated her banishment? Why was she even
now flying in the face of authority and risking a serious reprimand by
letting him ride in her car?

In fierce justification she told herself it was simply because the family
had meddled. If they had not interfered, things would never have reached
the danger mark. She had met Captain Phipps three weeks ago at her Uncle
Randolph Bartlett's, and had at first not been sure that she liked him.
He had seemed then a little superior and condescending, and had evidently
considered her too young to be interesting. But the next time they met
there Aunt