When he went to church he listened to the sermon, but rather often he looked at Elizabeth Wheeler.  When his eyes wandered, as the most faithful eyes will now and then, they were apt to rest on the flag that had hung, ever since the war, beside the altar.  He had fought for his country in a sea of mud, never nearer than two hundred miles to the battle line, fought with a surgical kit instead of a gun, but he was content.  Not to all the high adventure.

Had he been asked, suddenly, the name of the tall blonde girl who sang among the sopranos, he could not have told it.

The Sunday morning following Clare Rossiter’s sentimental confession, Elizabeth tried very hard to banish all worldly thoughts, as usual, and to see the kneeling, rising and sitting congregation as there for worship.  But for the first time she wondered.  Some of the faces were blank, as though behind the steady gaze the mind had wandered far afield, or slept.  Some were intent, some even devout.  But for the first time she began to feel that people in the mass might be cruel, too.  How many of them, for instance, would sometime during the day pass on, behind their hands, the gossip Clare had mentioned?

She changed her position, and glanced quickly over the church.  The Livingstone pew was fully occupied, and well up toward the front, Wallie Sayre was steadfastly regarding her.  She looked away quickly.

Came the end of the service.  Came down the aisle the Courtney boy, clean and shining and carrying high his glowing symbol.  Came the choir, two by two, the women first, sopranos, altos and Elizabeth.  Came the men, bass and tenor, neatly shaved for Sunday morning.  Came the rector, Mr. Oglethorpe, a trifle wistful, because always he fell so far below the mark he had set.  Came the benediction.  Came the slow rising from its knees of the congregation and its cheerful bustle of dispersal.

Doctor Dick Livingstone stood up and helped Doctor David into his new spring overcoat.  He was very content.  It was May, and the sun was shining.  It was Sunday, and he would have an hour or two of leisure.  And he had made a resolution about a matter that had been in his mind for some time.  He was very content.

He looked around the church with what was almost a possessive eye.  These people were his friends.  He knew them all, and they knew him.  They had, against his protest, put his name on the bronze tablet set in the wall on the roll of honor.  Small as it was, this was his world.

Half smiling, he glanced about.  He did not realize that behind their bows and greetings there was something new that day, something not so much unkind as questioning.

Outside in the street he tucked his aunt, Mrs. Crosby, against the spring wind, and waited at the wheel of the car while David entered with the deliberation of a man accustomed to the sagging of his old side-bar buggy under his weight.  Long ago Dick had dropped the titular “uncle,” and as David he now addressed him.