Though I can't believe our being there cramped her style very much in
singing those songs. If it did, I'd hate to think what she would have
done if we hadn't been. I hope March liked his own stuff. He was there
all the while, you know. She must have had him tucked away in that little
old room of Annie's that opened off the nursery. Somewhere anyhow,
because long after every one else had gone, he came down-stairs with the
Frenchman. I got one surprise just then all right. He's a private
soldier, did you know that? Just a plain doughboy."

"Overseas?" Mary asked.

"As far as Bordeaux, with the Eighty-sixth. Saxaphone player with one of
the artillery bands. In a way I'm rather glad of it. That that's what he
turns out to be, I mean."

"Why?" Mary made the word rather crisply.

"Oh, well," Rush explained uncomfortably, "you know what it had begun to
look like. Paula quarreling with father about him and not going down to
dinner; and--cutting loose like that over his music. But of course there
couldn't be anything of that sort--with a chap like that."

"What is the lowest military rank," Mary inquired, "that you think Paula
could fall in love with?"

The satirical import of her question was not lost upon him but he held
his ground. "It may sound snobbish but it's true just the same," he
insisted. "A doughboy's a doughboy, and Paula wouldn't get mixed up with
one--any more than you would."