Betty presently broke into the opening strains of “There’s a long, long road awinding,” and the girlish voices took it up eagerly.  They put into the melody all the pathos and longing of their hearts.  They forgot where they were, the pleasant room faded away, and they saw only a sinister gray line of trenches, trenches that were death traps for the flowering youth of America.  They were singing to the boys, their boys, and as she listened Mrs. Ford’s eyes filled with tears.

Nor was she the only one of that little audience who could not listen to the song unmoved.  Joe Barnes felt a great, unaccustomed lump rising in his throat, and as the hot tears stung his eyes he rose hastily and stood staring at, though not seeing, a great picture of some illustrious ancestor that hung over the mantel.

And Mrs. Barnes, looking at her son, pressed a hand over her heart, as though to still a hurt, while in her eyes grew a look of yearning.

“My poor, poor boy!” she murmured over and over to herself.

And the girls, all unaware of the emotions they had awakened, drew the last sweet note to a lingering close and stood quiet for a moment while Betty’s fingers rested on the keys.  Then ­

“That was very beautiful,” said Mrs. Barnes, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact tone.  “You girls sing wonderfully together.”

“We ought to,” said Betty, forcing a lightness she did not feel, for as usual she was the first to sense the tense quality in the atmosphere, “for we have certainly had practice enough.  We used to sing for the soldier boys at the Hostess House almost every night.”

“Yes, but it was sometimes very hard to make them sing,” added Amy.  “Often they didn’t want to at first.  But they always joined in toward the end, and the gloomiest of them went away with a smile on his lips.”

“They could afford to laugh,” said Joe Barnes bitterly.  He had left the picture of his illustrious ancestor and had dropped down in his old position on the edge of the table, leg swinging idly.  But his expression had changed.  It was grim and hard.

Betty, looking at him, suddenly remembered, and she could see by the expressions on the faces of her chums that they also had awakened to the situation.

With horrible lack of tact, they had offended their kind host and hostess.  That they had not done so deliberately, helped their self-condemnation not at all.

They had sung patriotic songs, they had spoken of their work at the Hostess House and of the soldier boys, while Joe Barnes, of military age and seemingly in perfect health, did not wear a uniform.  Even though he were a slacker, it was terribly bad taste to tell him so in his own home, while accepting his, or his mother’s, hospitality.

And something deep down in their hearts, intuition, perhaps, perhaps a sort of sixth sense born of their wide experience of boys of all ages, told them that he was not a slacker.  There must be some reason, some real excuse for his behavior.

“Won’t you sing some more?” asked their hostess in an attempt to relieve the situation, while she kept one eye anxiously on her son.  “Surely you haven’t finished.”

“I’m afraid we have,” said Betty, with a gay little laugh, “for the very good reason that we don’t know any more songs to sing.”

“And we want to hear some more real music,” added Mollie, gamely following her lead.  “That is, if you are not tired.”

“Oh, no, music never tires us,” returned Mrs. Barnes, adding, with a little entreating glance at her son:  “Will you put on another record, dear ­something light and merry this time?”

“How about some dance music?” queried Joe pleasantly.  He was very much ashamed of his weakness and ill temper, and was determined to make up for it.  “That’s about the lightest and merriest we have.”

The girls assented eagerly, and in a few minutes the unpleasant episode was forgotten ­or apparently forgotten.  At least, for the time being it was relegated to the background, and it was not till some time later that Joe unexpectedly broached it to Betty.

The drenching downpour had changed to a sort of dismal drizzle and Mrs. Ford, upon remarking this fact had made the suggestion that they get into the machines again and try to make Bensington.  But Mrs. Barnes had so promptly and emphatically negatived this that there was really no room left for argument.

“Why, even with dry roads it would take you two hours or more to get there, for at all times the road is bad between here and Bensington, but such a thing is simply out of the question with roads that are two feet deep in mud.  No, you must stay for the night.  I have plenty of room and am more than delighted to have you.  No, please don’t object, for I will not hear of your doing otherwise.”

And so it had been settled, much to everybody’s satisfaction.

However, Betty was very much surprised when, in the midst of a beautiful dance with Joe Barnes ­for Joe was a rather wonderful dancer ­the latter whirled her off toward a window seat in one corner of the room and placed her, a little breathless, upon it.

“Well,” she said, that unconquerable imp of mischief dancing in her eyes, “have you any adequate excuse to offer for the spoiling of an exceptionally good dance?”

“Is it spoiled?” he asked reproachfully, as he sank down beside her.  “I thought perhaps I was improving ­the occasion.”

She made a little face at him, incidentally showing all her dimples.

“I suppose, if I were a coquette,” she said, flushing a little under the very open admiration of his eyes, “which I am not ­”

“I’m not so sure,” he murmured but she pretended not to hear the interruption.

“I should deny that you had spoiled the dance.  As it is,” she flashed him a pretty smile that robbed her words of all sting, “I’m telling you the truth.”

“And I,” he countered, “am telling you the truth when I say that if it were possible to talk with you and dance at the same time, I should not have brought you here.  As it is, I choose the greater of the two blessings.”

“It must be very important ­this that you have to say to me,” replied Betty, adding demurely:  “Perhaps if you would tell me all about it, we could dance again.”

“In other words, ’get the agony over’,” said Joe, with a grimace.  He waited a moment, while the girls, who had danced to the end of the record, turned it over, put in a new needle and started off all over again.

“I don’t know whether it will seem important to you or not,” he said at last, turning slowly toward her.  “But what I have to tell you is just about the most important thing in life to me.”

The tone as well as the words sobered Betty, and she turned to him earnestly.

“I shall be very glad to hear it then,” she said simply.

“I ­you ­it’s rather hard to begin,” he stammered, then straightened up and faced her frankly.

“The truth is, I can’t help knowing that you wondered when you first saw me and am wondering now ­as any one has a right to wonder these days when they see a fellow like me in civilian clothes ­”

Betty started and the color rushed to her face.

“No, I haven’t ­” she began, then stopped confused, remembering that she had been wondering just that thing only a few minutes, yes, only a minute before.  “I mean I thought ­”

“Yes, it’s easy to guess what you thought,” he interrupted, misinterpreting her sentence while the bitter look crept once more into his eyes.  “It’s easy enough to guess what everybody thinks.  But,” he straightened his shoulders and threw back his head, “I don’t think anybody will have a right to think that very much longer.  You see,” he added, turning to her again and speaking more calmly, “I tried to enlist at the beginning of the war, but they told me there was something wrong here,” he touched his chest, “with my lungs.”

Betty gave an involuntary exclamation of pity.

“The doctor said it was just beginning,” he went on slowly, “and he said ­he was a good old scout, that doctor ­that if I got out of the city where I could get fresh air, eggs, and milk ­you know, the same old stuff ­that I might succeed in curing myself up in a hurry and get in the game in time to bring in my share of helmets after all.”

“Oh, so that’s why you and your mother are away out here!” cried Betty eagerly, laying an impulsive little hand on his.  “And you are well, aren’t you?  Why, you must be!  You look the very picture of health.”

Joe gulped a little, looked at the friendly little hand on his, tried to speak once or twice and failed, then ­

“I feel just fine,” he said, striving to make his voice sound natural.  “I never cough any more, and I’ve got the appetite of a wolf ­you saw how I ate to-night ­” a faint smile lighted his eyes and found an answering one in Betty’s.  “Yet, I’ve been holding off for more than three weeks for fear ­just for fear ­everything isn’t all right.  You see, they’ve made a coward of me.  I’m afraid of being refused twice.”

“Oh, but you won’t be!” cried Betty, with honest conviction in her voice.  “I’m not much of a doctor, although I’ve met so many of them at Camp Liberty and heard them talk so much about different diseases that I feel I ought at least to qualify as an assistant,” she paused to smile at herself and he thought he had never seen anything so pretty in his life, “and I would say that whatever your trouble has been, it is cured now.  I’m sure of it.”

“Hold on, hold on,” he entreated a little huskily.  “If I could only believe that ­”

“Say, you two over there,” Mollie’s voice broke in upon them gayly, “we’ve been trying hard to be polite and not interrupt, but the clock has just struck twelve and we have a long ride before us to-morrow ­or rather, to-day!”

Betty replied laughingly, but before she could rejoin the others, Joe had whispered another question.

“You really meant what you said?” he asked.

“With all my heart,” she answered earnestly.