Lane saw the casement of his window
grow gray with the glimmering light of dawn.
After that he slept several hours. When he awoke
it was nine o’clock. The long night with
its morbid dreams and thoughts had passed, and in
the sunshine of day he saw things differently.
To move, to get up was not an easy
task. It took stern will, and all the strength
of muscle he had left, and when he finally achieved
it there was a clammy dew of pain upon his face.
With slow guarded movements he began to dress himself.
Any sudden or violent action might burst the delicate
gassed spots in his lungs or throw out of place one
of the lower vertebrae of his spine. The former
meant death, and the latter bent his body like a letter
S and caused such excruciating agony that it was worse
than death. These were his two ever-present perils.
The other aches and pains he could endure.
He shaved and put on clean things,
and his best coat, and surveyed himself in the little
mirror. He saw a thin face, white as marble, but
he was not ashamed of it. His story was there
to read, if any one had kind enough eyes to see.
What would Helen think of him and Margaret
Maynard and Dal and Mel Iden?
Bitter curiosity seemed his strongest feeling concerning
his fiancee. He would hold her as engaged to him
until she informed him she was not. As for the
others, thought of them quickened his interest, especially
in Mel. What had happened to her.
It was going to be wonderful to meet
them and to meet everybody he had once
known. Wonderful because he would see what the
war had done to them and they would see what it had
done to him. A peculiar significance lay between
his sister and Helen all these girls, and
the fact of his having gone to war.
“They may not think of it, but
I know,” he muttered to himself.
And he sat down upon his bed to plan how best to meet
them, and others. He did not know what he was
going to encounter, but he fortified himself against
calamity. Strange portent of this had crossed
the sea to haunt him. As soon as he was sure
of what had happened in Middleville, of the attitude
people would have toward a crippled soldier, and of
what he could do with the month or year that might
be left him to live, then he would know his own mind.
All he sensed now was that there had been some monstrous
inexplicable alteration in hope, love, life. His
ordeal of physical strife, loneliness, longing was
now over, for he was back home. But he divined
that his greater ordeal lay before him, here in this
little house, and out there in Middleville. All
the subtlety, intelligence, and bitter vision developed
by the war sharpened here to confront him with terrible
possibilities. Had his countrymen, his people,
his friends, his sweetheart, all failed him?
Was there justice in Blair Maynard’s scorn?
Lane’s faith cried out in revolt. He augmented
all possible catastrophe, and then could not believe
that he had sacrificed himself in vain. He knew
himself. In him was embodied all the potentiality
for hope of the future. And it was with the front
and stride of a soldier, facing the mystery, the ingratitude,
the ignorance and hell of war, that he left his room
and went down stairs to meet the evils in store.
His mother was not in the kitchen.
The door stood open. He heard her outside talking
to a neighbor woman, over the fence.
“ Daren looks dreadful,”
his mother was saying in low voice. “He
could hardly walk.... It breaks my heart.
I’m glad to have him along but to
see him waste away, day by day, like Mary Dean’s
boy ” she broke off.
“Too bad! It’s a
pity,” replied the neighbor. “Sad now
it comes home to us. My son Ted came in last
night and said he’d talked with a boy who’d
seen young Maynard and the strange soldier who was
with him. They must be worse off than Daren Blair
Maynard with only one leg and ”
“Mother, where are you?
I’m hungry,” called Lane, interrupting
that conversation.
She came hurriedly in, at once fearful
he might have heard, and solicitous for his welfare.
“Daren, you look better in daylight not
so white,” she said. “You sit down
now, and let me get your breakfast.”
Lane managed to eat a little this
morning, which fact delighted his mother.
“I’m going to see Dr.
Bronson,” said Lane, presently. “Then
I’ll go to Manton’s, and round town a
little. And if I don’t tire out I’ll
call on Helen. Of course Lorna has gone to work?”
“Oh yes, she leaves at half after eight.”
“Mother, I was awake last night
when she got home,” went on Lane, seriously.
“It was one o’clock. She came in a
car. I heard girls tittering. And some boy
came up on the porch with Lorna and kissed her.
Well, that might not mean much but something
about their talk, the way it was done makes
me pretty sick. Did you know this sort of thing
was going on?”
“Yes. And I’ve talked
with mothers who have girls Lorna’s age.
They’ve all run wild the last year or so.
Dances and rides! Last summer I was worried half
to death. But we mothers don’t think the
girls are really bad. They’re just
crazy for fun, excitement, boys. Times and pleasures
have changed. The girls say the mothers don’t
understand. Maybe we don’t. I try
to be patient. I trust Lorna. I can’t
see through it all.”
“Don’t worry, mother,”
said Lane, patting her hand. “I’ll
see through it for you. And if Lorna is well,
running too much wild as you said I’ll
stop her.”
His mother shook her head.
“One thing we mothers all agree
on. These girls, of this generation, say fourteen
to sixteen, can’t be stopped.”
“Then that is a serious matter.
It must be a peculiarity of the day. Maybe the
war left this condition.”
“The war changed all things,
my son,” replied his mother, sadly.
Lane walked thoughtfully down the
street toward Doctor Bronson’s office.
As long as he walked slowly he managed not to give
any hint of his weakness. The sun was shining
with steely brightness and the March wind was living
up to its fame. He longed for summer and hot days
in quiet woods or fields where daisies bloomed.
Would he live to see the Indian summer days, the smoky
haze, the purple asters?
Lane was admitted at once into the
office of Doctor Bronson, a little, gray, slight man
with shrewd, kind eyes and a thoughtful brow.
For years he had been a friend as well as physician
to the Lanes, and he had always liked Daren.
His surprise was great and his welcome warm.
But a moment later he gazed at Lane with piercing eyes.
“Look here, boy, did you go
to the bad over there?” he demanded.
“How do you mean, Doctor?”
“Did you let down debase yourself
morally?”
“No. But I went to the bad physically and
spiritually.”
“I see that. I don’t
like the color of your face.... Well, well, Daren.
It was hell, wasn’t it? Did you kill a couple
of Huns for me?”
Questions like this latter one always
alienated Lane in some unaccountable way. It
must have been revealed in his face.
“Never mind, Daren. I see
that you did.... I’m glad you’re
back alive. Now what can I do for you?”
“I’ve been discharged
from three hospitals in the last two months not
because I was well, but because I was in better shape
than some other poor devil. Those doctors in
the service grew hard they had to be hard but
they saw the worst, the agony of the war. I always
felt sorry for them. They never seemed to eat
or sleep or rest. They had no time to save a
man. It was cut him up or tie him up then
on to the next.... Now, Doc, I want you to look
me over and well tell me what
to expect.”
“All right,” replied Doctor Bronson, gruffly.
“And I want you to promise not to tell mother
or any one. Will you?”
“Yes, I promise. Now come in here and get
off some of your clothes.”
“Doctor, it’s pretty tough on me to get
in and out of my clothes.”
“I’ll help you. Now tell me what
the Germans did to you.”
Lane laughed grimly. “Doctor,
do you remember I was in your Sunday School class?”
“Yes, I remember that. What’s it
got to do with Germans?”
“Nothing. It struck me
funny, that’s all.... Well, to get it over.
I was injured several times at the training camp.”
“Anything serious?”
“No, I guess not. Anyway
I forgot about them. Doctor, I was shot four
times, once clear through. I’ll show you.
Got a bad bayonet jab that doesn’t seem to heal
well. Then I had a dose of both gases chlorine
and mustard and both all but killed me.
Last I’ve a weak place in my spine. There’s
a vertebra that slips out of place occasionally.
The least movement may do it. I can’t
guard against it. The last time it slipped out
I was washing my teeth. I’m in mortal dread
of this. For it twists me out of shape and hurts
horribly. I’m afraid it’ll give me
paralysis.”
“Humph! It would.
But it can be fixed.... So that’s all they
did to you?”
Underneath the dry humor of the little
doctor, Lane thought he detected something akin to
anger.
“Yes, that’s all they did to my body,”
replied Lane.
Doctor Bronson, during a careful and
thorough examination of Lane’s heart, lungs,
blood pressure, and abdominal region, did not speak
once. But when he turned him over, to see and
feel the hole in Lane’s back, he exclaimed:
“My God, boy, what made this a shell?
I can put my fist in it.”
“That’s the bayonet jab.”
Doctor Bronson cursed in a most undignified
and unprofessional manner. Then without further
comment he went on and completed the examination.
“That’ll do,” he
said, and lent a hand while Lane put on his clothes.
It was then he noticed Lane’s medal.
“Ha! The Croix de Guerre!...
Daren, I was a friend of your father’s.
I know how that medal would have made him feel.
Tell me what you did to get it?”
“Nothing much,” replied
Lane, stirred. “It was in the Argonne, when
we took to open fighting. In fact I got most
of my hurts there.... I carried a badly wounded
French officer back off the field. He was a heavy
man. That’s where I injured my spine.
I had to run with him. And worse luck, he was
dead when I got him back. But I didn’t know
that.”
“So the French decorated you,
hey?” asked the doctor, leaning back with hands
on hips, and keenly eyeing Lane.
“Yes.”
“Why did not the American Army give you equal
honor?”
“Well, for one thing it was
never reported. And besides, it wasn’t
anything any other fellow wouldn’t do.”
Doctor Bronson dropped his head and
paced to and fro. Then the door-bell rang in
the reception room.
“Daren Lane,” began the
doctor, suddenly stopping before Lane, “I’d
hesitate to ask most men if they wanted the truth.
To many men I’d lie. But I know a few words
from me can’t faze you.”
“No, Doctor, one way or another
it is all the same to me.”
“Well, boy, I can fix up that
vertebra so it won’t slip out again....
But, if there’s anything in the world to save
your life, I don’t know what it is.”
“Thank you, Doctor. It’s something
to know what to expect,” returned
Lane, with a smile.
“You might live a year and
you might not.... You might improve. God
only knows. Miracles do happen. Anyway,
come back to see me.”
Lane shook hands with him and went
out, passing another patient in the reception room.
Then as Lane opened the door and stepped out upon the
porch he almost collided with a girl who evidently
had been about to come in.
“I beg your ”
he began, and stopped. He knew this girl, but
the strained tragic shadow of her eyes was strikingly
unfamiliar. The transparent white skin let the
blue tracery of veins show. On the instant her
lips trembled and parted.
“Oh, Daren don’t you know me?”
she asked.
“Mel Iden!” he burst out.
“Know you? I should smile I do. But
it it was so sudden. And you’re
older different somehow. Mel, you’re
sweeter why you’re beautiful.”
He clasped her hands and held on to
them, until he felt her rather nervously trying to
withdraw them.
“Oh, Daren, I’m glad to
see you home alive whole,”
she said, almost in a whisper. “Are you well?”
“No, Mel. I’m in
pretty bad shape,” he replied. “Lucky
to get home alive to see you all.”
“I’m sorry. You’re
so white. You’re wonderfully changed, Daren.”
“So are you. But I’ll
say I’m happy it’s not painted face and
plucked eyebrows.... Mel, what’s happened
to you?”
She suddenly espied the decoration
on his coat. The blood rose and stained her clear
cheek. With a gesture of exquisite grace and
sensibility that thrilled Lane she touched the medal.
“Oh! The Croix de Guerre....
Daren, you were a hero.”
“No, Mel, just a soldier.”
She looked up into his face with eyes
that fascinated Lane, so beautiful were they the
blue of corn-flowers and lighted then with
strange rapt glow.
“Just a soldier!” she
murmured. But Lane heard in that all the sweetness
and understanding possible for any woman’s heart.
She amazed him held him spellbound.
Here was the sympathy and something else a
nameless need for which he yearned.
The moment was fraught with incomprehensible forces.
Lane’s sore heart responded to her rapt look,
to the sudden strange passion of her pale face.
Swiftly he divined that Mel Iden gloried in the presence
of a maimed and proven soldier.
“Mel, I’ll come to see
you,” he said, breaking the spell. “Do
you still live out on the Hill road? I remember
the four big white oaks.”
“No, Daren, I’ve left
home,” she said, with slow change, as if his
words recalled something she had forgotten. All
the radiance vanished, leaving her singularly white.
“Left home! What for?” he asked,
bluntly.
“Father turned me out,”
she replied, with face averted. The soft roundness
of her throat swelled. Lane saw her full breast
heave under her coat.
“What’re you saying, Mel
Iden?” he demanded, as quickly as he could find
his voice.
Then she turned bravely to meet his
gaze, and Lane had never seen as sad eyes as looked
into his.
“Daren, haven’t you heard about
me?” she asked, with tremulous lips.
“No. What’s wrong?”
“I I can’t let you call on
me.”
“Why not? Are you married jealous
husband?”
“No, I’m not married but I I
have a baby,” she whispered.
“Mel!” gasped Lane. “A war
baby?”
“Yes.”
Lane was so shocked he could not collect
his scattered wits, let alone think of the right thing
to say, if there were any right thing. “Mel,
this is a a terrible surprise. Oh,
I’m sorry.... How the war played hell with
all of us! But for you Mel Iden I
can’t believe it.”
“Daren, so terribly true,” she said.
“Don’t I look it?”
“Mel, you look oh heartbroken.”
“Yes, I am broken-hearted,” she replied,
and drooped her head.
“Forgive me, Mel. I hardly
know what I’m saying.... But listen I’m
coming to see you.”
“No,” she said.
That trenchant word was thought-provoking.
A glimmer of understanding began to dawn in Lane.
Already an immense pity had flooded his soul, and
a profound sense of the mystery and tragedy of Mel
Iden. She had always been unusual, aloof, proud,
unattainable, a girl with a heart of golden fire.
And now she had a nameless child and was an outcast
from her father’s house. The fact, the fatality
of it, stunned Lane.
“Daren, I must go in to see
Dr. Bronson,” she said. “I’m
glad you’re home. I’m proud of you.
I’m happy for your mother and Lorna. You
must watch Lorna try to restrain her.
She’s going wrong. All the young girls
are going wrong. Oh, it’s a more dreadful
time now than before or during the war.
The let-down has been terrible.... Good-bye,
Daren.”
In other days Manton’s building
on Main Street had appeared a pretentious one to Lane’s
untraveled eyes. It was an old three-story red-brick-front
edifice, squatted between higher and more modern structures.
When he climbed the dirty dark stairway up to the second
floor a throng of memories returned with the sensations
of creaky steps, musty smell, and dim light.
When he pushed open a door on which MANTON & CO. showed
in black letters he caught his breath. Long long
past! Was it possible that he had been penned
up for three years in this stifling place?
Manton carried on various lines of
business, and for Middleville, he was held to be something
of a merchant and broker. Lane was wholly familiar
with the halls, the several lettered doors, the large
unpartitioned office at the back of the building.
Here his slow progress was intercepted by a slip of
a girl who asked him what he wanted. Before answering,
Lane took stock of the girl. She might have been
all of fifteen no older. She had curly
bobbed hair, and a face that would have been comely
but for the powder and rouge. She was chewing
gum, and she ogled Lane.
“I want to see Mr. Manton,” Lane said.
“What name, please.”
“Daren Lane.”
She tripped off toward the door leading
to Manton’s private offices, and Lane’s
gaze, curiously following her, found her costume to
be startling even to his expectant eyes. Then
she disappeared. Lane’s gaze sought the
corner and desk that once upon a time had been his.
A blond young lady, also with bobbed hair, was operating
a typewriter at his desk. She glanced up, and
espying Lane, she suddenly stopped her work.
She recognized him. But, if she were Hattie Wilson,
it was certain that Lane did not recognize her.
Then the office girl returned.
“Step this way, please. Mr. Smith will
see you.”
How singularly it struck Lane that
not once in three years had he thought of Smith.
But when he saw him, the intervening months were as
nothing. Lean, spare, pallid, with baggy eyes,
and the nose of a drinker, Smith had not changed.
“How do, Lane. So you’re
back? Welcome to our city,” he said, extending
a nerveless hand that felt to Lane like a dead fish.
“Hello, Mr. Smith. Yes,
I’m back,” returned Lane, taking the chair
Smith indicated. And then he met the inevitable
questions as best he could in order not to appear
curt or uncivil.
“I’d like to see Mr. Manton
to ask for my old job,” interposed Lane, presently.
“He’s busy now, Lane,
but maybe he’ll see you. I’ll find
out.”
Smith got up and went out. Lane
sat there with a vague sense of absurdity in the situation.
The click of a typewriter sounded from behind him.
He wanted to hurry out. He wanted to think of
other things, and twice he drove away memory of the
girl he had just left at Doctor Bronson’s office.
Presently Smith returned, slipping along in his shiny
black suit, flat-footed and slightly bowed, with his
set dull expression.
“Lane, Mr. Manton asks you to
please excuse him. He’s extremely busy,”
said Smith. “I told him that you wanted
your old job back. And he instructed me to tell
you he had been put to the trouble of breaking in
a girl to take your place. She now does the work
you used to have very satisfactorily, Mr.
Manton thinks, and at less pay. So, of course,
a change is impossible.”
“I see,” returned Lane,
slowly, as he rose to go. “I had an idea
that might be the case. I’m finding things a
little different.”
“No doubt, Lane. You fellows
who went away left us to make the best of it.”
“Yes, Smith, we fellows ‘went
away,’” replied Lane, with satire, “and
I’m finding out the fact wasn’t greatly
appreciated. Good day.”
On the way out the little office girl
opened the door for him and ogled him again, and stood
a moment on the threshold. Ponderingly, Lane
made his way down to the street. A rush of cool
spring air seemed to refresh him, and with it came
a realization that he never would have been able to
stay cooped up in Manton’s place. Even if
his services had been greatly desired he could not
have given them for long. He could not have stood
that place. This was a new phase of his mental
condition. Work almost anywhere in Middleville
would be like that in Manton’s. Could he
stand work at all, not only in a physical sense, but
in application of mind? He began to worry about
that.
Some one hailed Lane, and he turned
to recognize an old acquaintance Matt Jones.
They walked along the street together, meeting other
men who knew Lane, some of whom greeted him heartily.
Then, during an ensuing hour, he went into familiar
stores and the postoffice, the hotel and finally the
Bradford Inn, meeting many people whom he had known
well. The sum of all their greetings left him
in cold amaze. At length Lane grasped the subtle
import that people were tired of any one
or anything which reminded them of the war. He
tried to drive that thought from lodgment in his mind.
But it stuck. And slowly he gathered the forces
of his spirit to make good the resolve with which
he had faced this day to withstand an appalling
truth.
At the inn he sat before an open fire
and pondered between brief conversations of men who
accosted him. On the one hand it was extremely
trying, and on the other a fascinating and grim study to
meet people, and find that he could read their minds.
Had the war given him some magic sixth sense, some
clairvoyant power, some gift of vision? He could
not tell yet what had come to him, but there was something.
Business men, halting to chat with
Lane a few moments, helped along his readjustment
to the truth of the strange present. Almost all
kinds of business were booming. Most people had
money to spend. And there was a multitude, made
rich by the war, who were throwing money to the four
winds. Prices of every commodity were at their
highest peak, and supply could not equal demand.
An orgy of spending was in full swing, and all men
in business, especially the profiteers, were making
the most of the unprecedented opportunity.
After he had rested, Lane boarded
a street car and rode out to the suburbs of Middleville
where the Maynards lived. Although they had lost
their money they still lived in the substantial mansion
that was all which was left them of prosperous days.
House and grounds now appeared sadly run down.
A maid answered Lane’s ring,
and let him in. Lane found himself rather nervously
expecting to see Mrs. Maynard. The old house brought
back to him the fact that he had never liked her.
But he wanted to see Margaret. It turned out,
however, that mother and daughter were out.
“Come up, old top,” called
Blair’s voice from the hall above.
So Lane went up to Blair’s room,
which he remembered almost as well as his own, though
now it was in disorder. Blair was in his shirt
sleeves. He looked both gay and spent. Red
Payson was in bed, and his face bore the hectic flush
of fever.
“Aw, he’s only had too
much to eat,” declared Blair, in answer to Lane’s
solicitation.
“How’s that, Red?”
asked Lane, sitting down on the bed beside Payson.
“It’s nothing, Dare....
I’m just all in,” replied Red, with a weary
smile.
“I telephoned Doc Bronson to
come out,” said Blair, “and look us over.
That made Red as sore as a pup. Isn’t he
the limit? By thunder, you can’t do anything
for some people.”
Blair’s tone and words of apparent
vexation were at variance with the kindness of his
eyes as they rested upon his sick comrade.
“I just came from Bronson’s,”
observed Lane. “He’s been our doctor
for as long as I can remember.”
Both Lane’s comrades searched
his face with questioning eyes, and while Lane returned
that gaze there was a little constrained silence.
“Bronson examined me and
said I’d live to be eighty,” added Lane,
with dry humor.
“You’re a liar!” burst out Blair.
On Red Payson’s worn face a faint smile appeared.
“Carry on, Dare.”
Then Blair fell to questioning Lane
as to all the news he had heard, and people he had
met.
“So Manton turned you down cold,” said
Blair, ponderingly.
“I didn’t get to see him,”
replied Lane. “He sent out word that my
old job was held by a girl who did my work better
and at less pay.”
The blood leaped to Blair’s white cheek.
“What’d you say?” he queried.
“Nothing much. I just trailed
out.... But the truth is, Blair I
couldn’t have stood that place not
for a day.”
“I get you,” rejoined
Blair. “That isn’t the point, though.
I always wondered if we’d find our old jobs
open to us. Of course, I couldn’t fill
mine now. It was an outside job lots
of walking.”
So the conversation see-sawed back
and forth, with Red Payson listening in languid interest.
“Have you seen any of the girls?” asked
Blair.
“I met Mel Iden,” replied Lane.
“You did? What did she ”
“Mel told me what explained some of your hints.”
“Ahuh! Poor Mel! How’d she look?”
“Greatly changed,” replied
Lane, thoughtfully. “How do you remember
Mel?”
“Well, she was pretty soulful
face wonderful smile that sort
of thing.”
“She’s beautiful now, and sad.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. And she told
you right out about the baby?”
“No. That came out when
she said I couldn’t call on her, and I wanted
to know why.”
“But you’ll go anyhow?”
“Yes.”
“So will I,” returned
Blair, with spirit. “Dare, I’ve known
for over a year about Mel’s disgrace. You
used to like her, and I hated to tell you. If
it had been Helen I’d have told you in a minute.
But Mel.... Well, I suppose we must expect queer
things. I got a jolt this morning. I was
pumping my sister Margie about everybody, and, of
course, Mel’s name came up. You remember
Margie and Mel were as thick as two peas in a pod.
Looks like Mel’s fall has hurt Margie. But
I don’t just get Margie yet. She
might be another fellow’s sister for
all the strangeness of her.”
“I hardly knew my kid sister,”
responded Lane.
“Ahuh! The plot thickens....
Well, I couldn’t get much out of Marg.
She used to babble everything. But what little
she told me made up in in shock for what
it lacked in volume.”
“Tell me,” said Lane, as his friend paused.
“Nothing doing.” ...
And turning to the sick boy on the bed, he remarked,
“Red, you needn’t let this this
gab of ours bother you. This is home talk between
a couple of boobs who’re burying their illusions
in the grave. You didn’t leave a sister
or a lot of old schoolgirl sweethearts behind to ”
“What the hell do you know about
whom I left behind?” retorted Red, with a swift
blaze of strange passion.
“Oh, say, Red I I
beg your pardon, I was only kidding,” responded
Blair, in surprise and contrition. “You
never told me a word about yourself.”
For answer Red Payson rolled over
wearily and turned his back.
“Blair, I’ll beat it,
and let Red go to sleep,” said Lane, taking up
his hat. “Red, good-bye this time.
I hope you’ll be better soon.”
“I’m sorry, Lane,” came
in muffled tones from Payson.
“Cut that out, boy. You’ve
nothing to be sorry for. Forget it and cheer
up.”
Blair hobbled downstairs after Lane.
“Don’t go just yet, Dare.”
They found seats in the parlor that
appeared to be the same shabby genteel place where
Lane had used to call upon Blair’s sister.
“What ails Red?” queried Lane, bluntly.
“Lord only knows. He’s
a queer duck. Once in a while he lets out a crack
like that. There’s a lot to Red.”
“Blair, his heart is broken,” said Lane,
tragically.
“Well!” exclaimed Blair,
with quick almost haughty uplift of head. He
seemed to resent Lane’s surprise and intimation.
It was a rebuke that made Lane shrink.
“I never thought of Red’s
being hurt you know or as having
lost.... Oh, he just seemed like so many other
boys ruined in health. I ”
“All right. Cut the sentiment,”
interrupted Blair. “The fact is Red is
more of a problem than we had any idea he’d be....
And Dare, listen to this I’m ashamed
to have to tell you. Mother raised old Harry with
me this morning for fetching Red home. She couldn’t
see it my way. She said there were hospitals
for sick soldiers who hadn’t homes. I lost
my temper and I said: ’The hell of it, mother,
is that there’s nothing of the kind.’
... She said we couldn’t keep him here.
I tried to coax her.... Margie helped, but nothing
doing.”
Blair had spoken hurriedly with again
a stain of red in his white cheek, and a break in
his voice.
“That’s tough,”
replied Lane, haltingly. He could choke back speech,
but not the something in his voice he would rather
not have heard. “I’ll tell you what.
As soon as Red is well enough we’ll move him
over to my house. I’m sure mother will
let him share my room. There’s only Lorna and
I’ll pay Red’s board.... You have
quite a family ”
“Hell, Dare don’t
apologize to me for my mother,” burst out Blair,
bitterly.
“Blair, I believe you realize
what we are up against and I don’t,”
rejoined Lane, with level gaze upon his friend.
“Dare, can’t you see we’re
up against worse than the Argonne? worse,
because back here at home that beautiful,
glorious thought idea spirit
we had is gone. Dead!”
“No, I can’t see,” returned Lane,
stubbornly.
“Well, I guess that’s
one reason we all loved you, Dare you couldn’t
see.... But I’ll bet you my crutch Helen
makes you see. Her father made a pile out of
the war. She’s a war-rich snob now.
And going the pace!”
“Blair, she may make me see
her faithlessness and perhaps some strange
unrest some change that’s seemed to
come over everything. But she can’t prove
to me the death of anything outside of herself.
She can’t prove that any more than Mel Iden’s
confession proved her a wanton. It didn’t.
Not to me. Why, when Mel put her hand on my breast on
this medal and looked at me I
had such a thrill as I never had before in all my
life. Never!... Blair, it’s not
dead. That beautiful thing you mentioned that
spirit that fire which burned so gloriously it
is not dead.”
“Not in you old pard,”
replied Blair, unsteadily. “I’m always
ashamed before your faith. And, by God, I’ll
say you’re my only anchor.”
“Blair, let’s play the game out to the
end,” said Lane.
“I get you, Dare.... For
Margie, for Lorna, for Mel even if they
have ”
“Yes,” answered Lane, as Blair faltered.