"Not on our life!" he replied brusquely. "And if you don't mind, honey,
I don't care to hear about what they think over there." He got up from
his old place on the arm of her chair and stood on the rug. "I'd better
tell you now how I feel about this thing. I can't talk about it, that's
all. We'll finish up now and let it go at that. I'm sorry there's a
war. I'll send money when I can afford it, to help the Belgians, though
my personal opinion is that they're getting theirs for what they did in
the Congo. But I don't want to hear about what you did over there."

He saw her face, and he went to her and kissed her cheek.

"I don't want to hurt you, honey," he said. "I love you with all my
heart. But somehow I can't forget that you left me and went over there
when there was no reason for it. You put off our marriage, and I
suppose we'd better get it over. Go ahead and tell me about it."

He drew up a chair and waited, but the girl smiled rather tremulously.

"Perhaps we'd better wait, if you feel that way, Harvey."

His face was set as he looked at her.

"There's only one thing I want to know," he said. "And I've got a right
to know that. You're a young girl, and you're beautiful--to me, anyhow.
You've been over there with a lot of crazy foreigners." He got up again
and all the bitterness of the empty months was in his voice. "Did any
of them--was there anybody there you cared about?"