herself from a feeling that he would probably like it better just then
if she did not.

Back in her own place over her coffee and toast, she had no difficulty in
launching him upon the tale of his own recent experiences. What the
French were like now the war was over; and the Boche he had been living
among in the Coblenz area;--the routine of his army life, the friends he
made over there, and so on. Altogether she built him up immensely in his
own esteem. It was plain he liked having her for a younger sister instead
of for an older one, listening so contentedly to his tales, ministering
to his momentary wants, visibly wondering at and adoring him.

But she broke the spell when she asked him what he meant to do now.

He turned restlessly in his chair. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know
what the deuce there is I can do. Certainly father's idea of my going
back to college and then to medical school afterward, is just plain, rank
nonsense. I'd be a doddering old man before I got through--thirty years
old. I should think that even he would see that. It will have to be
business, I suppose, but if any kind friend comes around and suggests
that I begin at the bottom somewhere--Mr. Whitney, for instance, offering
me a job at ten dollars a week in his bank--I'll kill him. I can't do
that. I won't. At the end of about ten days, I'd run amuck. What I'd
really like," he concluded, "for about a year would be just this." His
gesture indicated the bathrobe, the easy chair and the dainty breakfast
table. "This, all the morning and a ball-game in the afternoon. Lord, it
will be good to see some real baseball again. We'll go to a lot of games
this summer. What are the Sox going to be like this year?"

She discussed the topic expertly with him and with a perfectly genuine