ago--before he found Paula. You see I am so terribly--left on his hands."

There was, no doubt, something comical about the look of utter
consternation she saw on her brother's face, but she should not have
tried to laugh at him for a sob caught the laugh in the middle and swept
away the last of her self-control. She flung herself down upon the divan
and buried her face in one of the pillows. He had seen men cry like that
but, oddly enough, never a woman. What he did though was perhaps as much
to the point as anything he could have done. He sat down beside her and
gathered her up tight in his arms and held her there without a word until
the tempest had blown itself out. When the sobs had died away to nothing
more than a tremulous catch in each indrawn breath, he let her go back
among the pillows and turn so that she could look up at him. By that time
the sweat had beaded out upon his forehead, and his hands, which had
dropped down upon her shoulders, were trembling.

"Well," she asked unsteadily. "What do you think of me now?"

He wanted to bend down and kiss her but wisely he forbore. "It's easy to
see what's the matter," he said. "This war business you have been doing
has been too much for you. You're simply all in." Then happily he added,
"I'd call you a case of shell-shock."

She rewarded that with a washed-out smile. "What's the treatment going to
be?" she asked.

"Why," he said, "as soon as I'm done tucking you up properly in this
eiderdown quilt, I'm going out to your icebox and try to find the makings
of an egg-nog. Incidentally, I shall scramble up all the rest of the eggs
I find and eat them myself. And then I'll find something dull to read to