o, there was something puerile in the argument that men any longer
needed war to fill their lives, must have the war fear to keep them from
softness and degeneration. Thinking of the problems of that very city, it
seemed men need not worry greatly about having nothing to fight for, no
stimulus to manhood.

Men and women! Those men and women passing back and forth and all the
millions of their kind, they were what counted. The things that
mattered to them were the things that mattered. Their needs the things
to fight for.

So he reflected and drifted, brushing now this, now that, in thought
and fancy.

Weary--lonely--he dreamed a dream, dream such as the weary and the lonely
have dreamed before, will dream again. Too utterly alone, he dreamed he
was not alone. Heart-hungry, he dreamed of love. He dreamed of Ann. He
had dreamed of her before, would dream of her again. Dream of her, if for
nothing else, because he knew she had dreamed of love; because she made
him know that it was there, because, unreasoningly, she made him hope.

Her face that night at the dance--that night in the boat, when they had
talked almost not at all, had seemed to feel no need for talking--things
remembered blended with things desired until it seemed he could feel her
hair brush his face, feel her breath upon his cheek, her arms about his
neck--vivid as if given by memories instead of wooed from dreams.

But the benign dream became torturing vision--vision of Ann with hands
held out to him--going down--her wonderful eyes fearful with terror.

It was that which dreaming held for him.

And it seemed that he--he and his kind--all of those who stood for the
things not real were the thing beating Ann down.

Dreams gone and vision mercifully falling away there came a yearning,
just a simple human yearning, to know where she was. He felt he could
bear anything if only he knew that she was safe.

The telephone rang. He supposed it was some of his friends--something
about the hour for dining.

He would not answer. Could not. Too sick of it all--too sore.

But it kept ringing, and, habit in the ascendency, he took down
the receiver.

It was not a man's voice. It was a woman's. A faint voice--he could
scarcely catch it.

And could with difficulty reply. He did not know the voice, it was too
faint, too far-away, but a suggestion in it made his own voice and hand
unsteady as he said: "Yes? What is it?"

"Is this--Captain Jones?"

The voice