ache with longing to hear it in your voice."

"You're a queer Buddy," returned the girl, not quite steadily. "Did you
bring me home a German helmet for a souvenir?"

He shook his head. "I didn't bring home much of anything, except some
experience and the discovery of the fact that when I had to stand on my
own feet, I wasn't much."

"You got your stripes, didn't you?" suggested the girl.

"That's all I did get," he returned jealously. "I didn't get any medal,
or palms or decorations or crosses of war: I didn't get anything except
an occasional calling down and a few scratches. If I'd had the luck to
get into aviation or some of the fancy branches--" David checked
himself. "There I go," he said in self-disgust. "Beefing again."

It was quite in the old, spoiled-child tone; an echo of indestructible
personality, the Weeping Scion of other days; and it went straight to
Mary's swelling, bewildered, groping heart. She began to laugh and a sob
tangled itself in the laughter, and she choked and said:

"Buddy."

He turned toward her.

"Don't be dumb, Buddy," she said, in the words of their unforgotten
first talk. "You've--you've got me--if you still want me."

She put out a tremulous hand to him, and it slipped over his shoulder