and when he
hesitated she continued, "I shall rely on you to let me know how things
are going on."

Again he coloured a little beneath his bronze and Mary found herself
watching it with an indefinable feeling of satisfaction. And after he was
gone and she was carrying the souvenirs to the den, she also found
herself singing a few broken bars from the Blue Danube.

"Is that you singing!" shouted Helen from the library.

"Trying to."

Helen came hurrying as though to see a miracle, for Mary couldn't sing.
"Oh--oh!" she said, her eyes falling on the helmet. "Who sent it? Wally
Cabot?"

"No; Archey Forbes brought it."

"Oh-ho!" said Helen again. "Now I see-ee-ee!"

But if she did, she saw more than Mary.

"Perhaps she thinks I'm in love with him," she thought, and though the
reflection brought a pleasant sense of disturbance with it, it wasn't
long before she was shaking her head.

"I don't know what it is," she decided at last, "but I'm sure I'm not in
love with him."

As nearly as I can express it, Mary was in love with love, and could no
more help it than she could help the crease in her chin or the dreaminess
of her eyes. If Archey had had the field to himself, her heart might soon
have turned to him as unconsciously and innocently as a flower turns its
petals to the sun. But the day after Archey returned, Wally Cabot came
back and he, too, laid his souvenirs at Mary's feet.

It was the same Wally as ever.

He had also brought a piece of old lace for Aunt Cordelia, a jet necklace
for Aunt Patty, a prison-camp brooch for Helen. All afternoon he held
them with tales of his adventures in the air, rolling up his sleeve to
show them a scar on his arm, and bending his head down so they could see
where a German ace had nicked a bit of his hair out.

More than once Mary felt her breath come faster, and when Aunt Cordelia
invited him to stay to dinner and he chanced to look at her, she gave a
barely perceptible signal "Yes," and smiled to herself at the warmth of
his acceptance.

"I'll telephone mother," he said, briskly rising. "Where's the phone,
Mary? I forget the way."

She arose to show him.

"Let's waltz out," he laughed. "Play something, Helen. Something lively
and happy...."

It was a long time before Mary went to sleep that night. The moon was
nearly full and shone in her windows, a stream of its rays falling on her
bed and bringing to her those immortal waves of fancy which begin where
the scen