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His eyes were open, blazing. “Money! Yes! Wonderful thing!”

“Ye-es. ”

“Buys tanks and shells, and food for homeless babies. But for me— I just want a living. There isn’t any Stacy Lindstrom any more. ” He was absorbed in that bigger thing over there, in that Nirvana—a fighting Nirvana! “I’ve got ambitions, big ‘uns, but not to see myself in a morning coat and new gloves on Sunday!”

He said nothing more. A week after, he was sitting up in bed, reading, in a Lindstromy nightgown of white cotton edged with red. She wondered at the book. It was Colloquial French.

“You aren’t planning to go back?” she asked casually.

“Yes. I’ve got it straight now. ” He leaned back, pulled the bedclothes carefully up about his neck and said quietly, “I’m going back to fight. But not just for the duration of the war. Now I know what I was meant for. I can do things with my hands, and I get along with plain folks. I’m going back on reconstruction work. We’re going to rebuild France. I’m studying—French, cottage architecture, cabbages. I’m a pretty good farmer—‘member how I used to work on the farm, vacations?”

She saw that all self-consciousness was gone from him. He was again the Stacy Lindstrom who had been lord of the Red River carts. Her haunted years of nervousness about life disappeared, and suddenly she was again too fond of her boy companion to waste time considering whether she was fond of him. They were making plans, laughing the quick curt laughs of intimates.

A week later Mrs. Lindstrom took her aside.

Mrs. Lindstrom had always, after admitting Theo and nodding without the slightest expression in her anmic face, vanished through the kitchen doorway. Tonight, as Theo was sailing out, Mrs. Lindstrom hastened after her through the living room.

“Miss! Miss Duke! Yoost a minute. Could you speak wit’ me?”

“Why, yes. ”

“Dis—ay—da boy get along pretty gude, eh? He seem werry gude, today. Ay vish you should—” The little woman’s face was hard. “Ay don’t know how to say it elegant, but if you ever—I know he ain’t your fella, but he always got that picture of you, and maybe now he ban pretty brave soldier, maybe you could like him better, but—I know I yoost ban Old Country woman. If you and him marry—I keep away, not bother you. Your folks is rich and—Oh, I gif, I gif him to you—if you vant him. ”

Mrs. Lindstrom’s sulky eyes seemed to expand, grow misty. Her Puritanical chest was terribly heaving. She sobbed: “He always talk about you ever since he ban little fella. Please excuse me I spoke, if you don’t vant him, but I vanted you should know, I do anyt’ing for him. And you. ”

She fled, and Theo could hear the scouring of a pot in the kitchen. Theo fled the other way.

It was that same evening, at dinner, that Mrs. Duke delicately attempted social homicide.

“My dear, aren’t you going to see this Lindstrom boy rather oftener than you need to? From what you say he must be convalescing. I hope that your pity for him won’t lead you into any foolish notions and sentiment about him. ”

Theo laughed. “No time to be sentimental about anything these days. I’ve canned the word—”

“‘Canned’! Oh, Theo!”

“—‘sentiment’ entirely. But if I hadn’t, Stace wouldn’t be a bad one to write little poems about. He used to be my buddy when—”

“Please—do—not—be—so—vulgar! And Theo, however you may regard Stacy, kindly do stop and think how Mrs. Lindstrom would look in this house!”

The cheerful, gustatory manner died in Theo. She rose. She said with an intense, a religious solemnity: “This house! Damn this house!”