“Is that so,” returned Lane, with irritation.  “A few more or less won’t matter....  Lorna, do you know Helen Wrapp?”

“That red-headed dame!” burst out Lorna, with heat.  “I should smile I do.  She’s one who doesn’t shake a shimmy on tea, believe me.”

Lane was somewhat at a loss to understand his sister’s intimation, but as it was vulgarly inimical, and seemed to hold some subtle personal scorn or jealousy, he shrank from questioning her.  This talk with his sister was the most unreal happening he had ever experienced.  He could not adjust himself to its verity.

“Helen Wrapp is nutty about Dick Swann,” went on Lorna.  “She drives down to the office after——­”

“Lorna, do you know Helen and I are engaged?” interrupted Lane.

“Hot dog!” was that young lady’s exposition of utter amaze.  She stared at her brother.

“We were engaged,” continued Lane.  “She wore my ring.  When I enlisted she wanted me to marry her before I left.  But I wouldn’t do that.”

Lorna promptly recovered from her amaze.  “Well, it’s a damn lucky thing you didn’t take her up on that marriage stuff.”

There was a glint of dark youthful passion in Lorna’s face.  Lane felt rise in him a desire to bid her sharply to omit slang and profanity from the conversation.  But the desire faded before his bewilderment.  All had suffered change.  What had he come home to?  There was no clear answer.  But whatever it was, he felt it to be enormous and staggering.  And he meant to find out.  Weary as was his mind, it grasped peculiar significances and deep portents.

“Lorna, where do you work?” he began, shifting his interest.

“At Swann’s,” she replied.

“In the office—­at the foundry?” he asked.

“No.  Mr. Swann’s at the head of the leather works.”

“What do you do?”

“I type letters,” she answered, and rose to make him a little bow that held the movement and the suggestion of a dancer.

“You’ve learned stenography?” he asked, in surprise.

“I’m learning shorthand,” replied Lorna.  “You see I had only a few weeks in business school before Dick got me the job.”

“Dick Swann?  Do you work for him?”

“No.  For the superintendent, Mr. Fryer.  But I go to Dick’s office to do letters for him some of the time.”

She appeared frank and nonchalant, evidently a little proud of her important position.  She posed before Lane and pirouetted with fancy little steps.

“Say, Dare, won’t you teach me a new dance—­right from Paris?” she interposed.  “Something that will put the shimmy and toddle out of biz?”

“Lorna, I don’t know what the shimmy and toddle are.  I’ve only heard of them.”

“Buried alive, I’ll say,” she retorted.

Lane bit his tongue to keep back a hot reprimand.  He looked at his mother, who was clearing off the supper table.  She looked sad.  The light had left her worn face.  Lane did not feel sure of his ground here.  So he controlled his feelings and directed his interest toward more news.