"I am not so sure that I do. Down deep we'd resent it if we were not
applauded, shouldn't we?"

Randy laughed. "I believe we should."

"I fancy that when we've been home for a time, we may feel somewhat
bitter if we find that our pedestals are knocked from under us. Our
people don't worship long. They have too much to think of. They'll put
up some arches, and a few statues and build tribute houses in a lot of
towns, and then they'll go on about their business, and we who have
fought will feel a bit blank."

Randy laughed, "You haven't any illusions about it, have you?"

"No, but you and I know that it's all right however it goes."

Randy, standing very straight, looked out over the valley where the
river showed through the rain like a silver thread. "Well, we didn't do
it for praise, did we?"

"No, thank God."

Their eyes were seeing other things than these quiet hills. Things they
wanted to forget. But they did not want to forget the high exaltation
which had sent them over, or the quiet conviction of right which had
helped them to carry on. What the people at home might do or think did
not matter. What mattered was their own adjustment to the things which
were to follow.

Randy went up-stairs, took off his uniform, bathed and came down in the