She was recalled from this perilous musing by Rapp, Senior, who came pressing his handkerchief to a brow damp from the last dance.  He bowed to Winona.

“May I have this pleasure?” he said.  Winona rose like a woman of the world.

“We’re on the map at last,” said Rapp, Senior, referring to Newbern’s newest big-town feature.

“I know I’m on the map at last,” said Winona, coyly, and tapped the arm of Rapp, Senior, with her feathered trifle of a fan.

“Dance?” said Wilbur to Patricia.

“Thanks a heap!  Merle won’t.  He says how can he dance when thinking of free Russia?  But did you see those stunning Russian dancers?  It doesn’t keep them from dancing, does it?  Poor old Merle is balmy—­mice in his wainscoting.”

They danced, and Patricia was still the rattlepate.

“You’re going over, Uncle Sharon told us.  Merle says you’re a victim of mob reaction—­what does that mean?  No matter.  Pretty soon he said you’d be only a private.  Grandpa Gideon looked as if he had bitten into a lemon.  He says, ’I believe privates form a very important arm of the service’—­just like that.  He’s not so keen on Merle, but he won’t admit it.  With him it’s once a Whipple always a Whipple!  When he saw Merle’s picture, leaning the beautiful head on the two long fingers and the hair kind of scrambly, he just said, ‘Ah, you young scamp of a socialist!’ as if he were saying, ‘Oh, fie on you!’ Merle can talk the whole bunch down when he gets to shooting on all six—­sounds good, but I’ve no doubt it’s just wise twaddle.

“What a stunning dancer you are!  Ask me quick again so I won’t have to go back to free Russia.  I’ll promise to nurse you when you get wounded over there.  I’ll have learned to do everything by that time.  Wouldn’t it be funny if you were brought in some day with a lot of wounds and I’d say, ’Why, dear me, that’s someone I know!  You must let me nurse him back to health,’ and of course they would.  Anyway, the family’s keen about my going.  They think I ought to do my bit, especially as Merle can’t, because of his eyes.  Be sure you ask me again.”

He asked her again and yet again.  He liked dancing with her.  Sometimes when she talked her eyes were like green flames.  But she talked of nothing long and the flames would die and her little waiting smile come entreating consideration for her infirmities.

“Now you be sure to come straight to me directly you’re wounded,” she again cautioned him as they parted.

He shook hands warmly with her.  He liked the girl, but he hoped there would be other nurses at hand if this thing occurred; that is, if it proved to be anything serious.

“Anyway, I hope I’ll see you,” he said.  “I guess home faces will be scarce over there.”

She looked him over approvingly.

“Be a good soldier,” she said.

Again they shook hands.  Then she fluttered off under the gloomy charge of Merle, who had remained austerely aloof from the night’s gayety.  Wilbur had had but a few words with him, for Patricia claimed his time.