“A jolly important side issue I take it for her and for you.  I’m not a stranger, Doctor Holiday.  I am Elinor Ruth Farringdon’s cousin, in her brother’s absence I represent her family and in that capacity I would like to say before I am a minute older that what you and the rest of you Holidays have done for Elinor passes anything I know of for sheer fineness and generosity.  I’m not a man of words.  War would have knocked them out of me if I had been but when I remember that you not only saved Elinor’s life but took care of her afterward when she apparently hadn’t a friend in the world—­well, there isn’t anything I can say but thank you and tell you that if there is ever anything I can do in return for you or yours you have only to ask.  Neither Elinor nor I can ever repay you.  It is the sort of thing that is—­unpayable.”  And again the captain wiped his perspiring brow.  He was deeply moved and emotion went hard with his Anglo-Saxon temperament.

“We did nothing but what anybody would have been glad to do.  If there are any thanks coming they are chiefly due to my uncle and his wife.  But we don’t any of us want thanks.  We love Ruth.  Please forget the rest.  We would rather you would.”

The captain nodded quick approval.  He had been told Americans were boasters, given to Big-Itis.  But either people got the Americans wrong or these Holidays were an exception to the general run.  He remembered that other young Holiday whom he had met rather intimately in the Canadian camp.  There had been no side there either.  His modesty had been one of his chief charms.  And here was the brother quietly putting aside credit for a course of conduct which was simply immense in its quixotic generosity.  He liked these Holidays.  There was something rather magnificent about their simplicity—­something almost British he thought.

“That is all very well,” he made answer.  “I won’t talk about it if you prefer but you will pardon me if I don’t forget that you saved my cousin’s life and looked after her when she was in a desperately unhappy situation and her own people seemed to have utterly deserted her.  And I consider my running into your brother at camp one of the sheerest pieces of good luck I’ve had these many days on all counts.”

“How did it happen?” asked Larry.

“I was doing some recruiting work in the vicinity and they asked me to say a few words to the lads in training.  I did.  Your brother was there and lost no time in getting in touch with me when he heard who I was.  And jolly pleased I was to hear his story—­all of it.”

The speaker smiled at his companion.