Emma was fingering the cotton-flannel garment on the table.

Buck crossed the room and stood beside her.  “Sorry I kept you waiting.  Three of the boys were called to-day.  It crippled us pretty badly in the shipping room.  Ready?”

“Yes.  Good-night, Charley.  Give my love to Gertie.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Buck.”  He picked up his cigar, took an apprehensive puff and went on ticketing and folding.  There was a grin behind the cigar now.

Into the late afternoon glitter of Fifth Avenue.  Five o’clock Fifth Avenue.  Flags of every nation, save one.  Uniforms of every blue from French to navy; of almost any shade save field green.  Pongee-coloured Englishmen, seeming seven feet high, to a man; aviators slim and elegant, with walking sticks made of the propeller of their shattered planes, with a notch for every Hun plane bagged.  Slim girls, exotic as the orchids they wore, gazing limpid-eyed at these warrior elegants.  Women uniformed to the last degree of tailored exquisiteness.  Girls, war accoutred, who brought arms up in sharp salute as they passed Emma.  Buck eyed them gravely, hat and arm describing parabolas with increasing frequency as they approached Fiftieth Street, slackening as the colourful pageant grew less brilliant, thinned, and faded into the park mists.

Emma’s cheeks were a glorious rose-pink.  Head high, shoulders back, she matched her husband’s long stride every step of the way.  Her eyes were bright and very blue.

“There’s a beautiful one, T.A.!  The Canadian officer with the limp.  They’ve all been gassed, and shot five times in the thigh and seven in the shoulder, and yet look at ’em!  What do you suppose they were when they were new if they can look like that, damaged!”

Buck cut a vicious little semi-circle in the air with his walking stick.

“I know now how the father of the Gracchi felt, and why you never hear him mentioned.”

“Nonsense, T.A.  You’re doing a lot.”  She did not intend her tone to be smug; but if she had glanced sidewise at her husband, she might have seen the pained red mount from chin to brow.  She did not seem to sense his hurt.  They went on, past the plaza now.  Only a few blocks lay between them and their home; the old brownstone house that had been New York’s definition of architectural elegance in the time of T.A.  Buck, Sr.

“Tell me, Emma.  Does this satisfy you—­the work you’re doing, I mean?  Do you think you’re giving the best you’ve got?”

“Well, of course I’d like to go to France—­”

“I didn’t ask you what you’d like.”

“Yes, sir.  Very good, sir.  I don’t know what you call giving the best one has got.  But you know I work from eight in the morning until midnight, often and often.  Oh, I don’t say that someone else couldn’t do my work just as well.  And I don’t say, either, that it doesn’t include a lot of dashing up and down Fifth Avenue, and teaing at the Ritz, and meeting magnificent Missions, and being cooed over by Lady Millionaires.  But if you’d like a few statistics as to the number of hundreds of thousands of soldiers we’ve canteened since last June, I’d be pleased to oblige.”  She tugged at a capacious pocket and brought forth a smart leather-bound notebook.