great refrigerator, closing her eyes to the morrow's reckoning. Johnny
would be hungry, Johnny was a sort of prodigal, and the fatted calf
should be killed figuratively and the ring placed upon his finger.

She told her mommie and her dad that Johnny was coming, and that
everything was all right, and Johnny would be sensible and settle down
now, because he was not going to enlist after all. She kissed them
both and flew back to the kitchen because she had thought of something
else that Johnny would like to eat.

This, you must understand, was while Johnny was feeding Bland,--and
himself,--in "Red's Quick Lunch", and worrying because Bland tactlessly
chose such expensive fare as T-bone steak and French fried. She was
out on the porch, watching the sky toward Tucson and looking rather
wistful, while Johnny was generously sorting out clothes for Bland and
insisting upon the bath and the change before Bland should sleep in
Johnny's bed. Mary V, you will observe, had no telepathic sense at all.

She watched while dark came and brought its star canopy,--and did not
bring Johnny. Long after she saw the rim of hills draw back into vague
shadows, she remained on the porch and listened for the hum of the
airplane speeding toward her. He would come, of course; he loved her.

Johnny did love her more than he had ever loved any one in his life,
but a man's love is not like a woman's love, they say.

"He must have had some trouble with his motor," Mary V observed
optimistically to her sleepy parents, when their early bedtime arrived.
"I'm going to leave the lights all on, so he'll see where to land. It
will be tremendously exciting to hear him come buzzing up in the dark.