hand.

The girls, who stood talking together for a moment, presented rather a
striking contrast. Molly Holderness was pretty but usual. Pamela was
beautiful and unusual. She had the long, slim body of a New York girl,
the complexion and eyes of a Southerner, the savoir faire of a
Frenchwoman. She was extraordinarily cosmopolitan, and yet
extraordinarily American. She impressed every one, as she did Molly
Holderness at that moment, with a sense of charm. One could almost
accept as truth her own statement--that she valued her looks chiefly
because they helped people to forget that she had brains.

"I won't admit that I have ever been bored, Miss Van Teyl," Molly
Holderness assured her, "but Dick has certainly told me all sorts of
wonderful things about you--how kind you were in New York, and what a
delightful surprise it was to see you down at the hospital at Nice. I
am afraid he must have been a terrible crock then."

"Got well in no time as soon as Miss Van Teyl came along," Holderness
declared. "It was a bit dreary down there at first. None of my lot were
sent south, and a familiar face means a good deal when you've got your
lungs full of that rotten gas and are feeling like nothing on earth. I
wonder where that idiot Sandy is. I told him to be here a quarter of an
hour before you others--thought we might have had a quiet chat first.
Will you stand by the girls for a moment, Lutchester, while I have a
look round?" he added.

He hobbled away, one of the thousands who were thronging the streets
and public places of London--brave, simple-minded young men, all of
them, with tangled recollections in their brains of blood and fire and