The man had but recently come in from field-work.  The woman was fresh from a transport voyage from the States.  He talked laughingly of the “niggers” his company had met—­of small, close fighting and surprises.  She wanted to hear more, more,—­but alone.  She was pressing him, less with words than manner, to come into the hotel and relate his adventures, where they could be quite alone....  She had been so passionately lonely without him—­back in Washington ... and the long voyage....  Her voice enthralled Bedient.

They were married.  The man laughed often.  The tropics had enervated him, though he made no such confession.  He wanted drink and lights.  To him, the present was relishable.  Their chairs scraped the tiles before Bedient turned....  They had not risen.  She caught his eyes.  Hers were not eyes of one who would be lonely in Washington nor during a long transport voyage.  She was very young, but a vibrant feminine, her awakening already long-past.  There was just a glimpse of light hair, a red-lipped profile and slow, shining dark eyes.  She was not even like Adelaide, but a blood sister in temperament.  Bedient saw this in her hands, wrists, lips and skin, in the pure elemental passion which came from her every tone and motion.  One of the insatiate—­yet frail and lovely and scented like a carnation; a white flower, red-tipped—­sublimate of earthy perfume.

Bedient had seen the man in the field, a young West Point product, with a queer, rabbit face, lots of men friends, the love of his company, and a remarkable kind of physical courage—­a splendid young chap, black from the heats, who was being talked about for his grisly humor under fire.  This officer had seen his men down—­and stayed with them....  His was a different and deeper love.  He did not hurry.  It seemed as if she would take his hand, after all, and lead him into the hotel.  Just a little girl—­little over twenty.

For the first time it struck Bedient that he must leave.  He was startled that he had not left.  His only palliation for such a venture into two lives—­was the memories her voice roused.  His lips tightened with scorn of self.  And yet the thought became a fury as he walked rapidly through the dark toward the river—­what it would mean to have a woman want him that way!....  His thoughts did not violate the soldier’s domain.  Quite clean, he was, from that; yet she had shown him afresh what was in the world.  It was nearing midnight; sentries of the city, still under martial law, ordered him off the streets before he realized passing time....  And the hours did not bring to his mind the woman of the Block-House, nor anyone of those flaming desert-women who love so fiercely and so fruitlessly; whose relations with men do not weave, but only bind the selvage of the human fabric....

* * * * *

Bedient was glad to get away to sea....  David Cairns, overtaken in China, had changed a little.  It appears that the very best of young men must change when they begin to wear their reputation.  Riding with Thirteen had made easily the best newspaper fodder which the Luzon campaigns furnished, and the sparkling wine of recognition eventually found its own.  It must be repeated that only a boy-mind can depict war in a way that fits into popular human interest.