“You won’t mind, General, if I carry Leila off to the other room.  I’ve a lot of things to say to her.”

“Of course not.  I was in love once myself, Barry.”

They went into the other room.  It was a long and formal parlor with crystal chandeliers and rose-colored stuffed furniture and gilt-framed mirrors.  It had been furnished by the General’s mother, and his little wife had loved it and had kept it unchanged.

It was dimly lighted now, and Leila in her white dinner gown and Barry tall and slender in his evening black were reflected by the long mirrors mistily.

Barry took her in his arms, and kissed her.  “My wife, my wife,” he said, again and again, “my wife.”

At first she yielded gladly, meeting his rapture with her own.  But presently she became aware of a wildness in his manner, a broken note in his whispers.

So she released herself, and stood back a little from him, and asked, breathing quickly, “Barry, what has happened?”

“Everything.  Since I left you this morning I’ve lost my place.  I found the envelope on my desk this morning—­telling of my discharge.  They said that I’d been too often away without sufficient excuse, and so they have dropped me from the rolls.  And you see that what Gordon said was true.  I can’t earn a living for a wife.  Now that I have you, I can’t take care of you—­it is not much of a fellow that you’ve married, Leila.”

Oh, the little white face with the shining eyes!

Then out of the stillness came her cry, like a bird’s note, triumphant. 
“But I’m your wife now, and nothing can part us, Barry.”

He caught up her hands in his.  “Dearest, dearest—­don’t you see that I can’t ever tell them of our marriage until I can show them——­”

“Show them what, Barry?”

“That I can take care of you.”

“Do you mean that I mustn’t even tell Dad, Barry?”

“You mustn’t tell any one, not until I come back.”

Every drop of blood was drained from her face.

“Until you come back.  Are you going—­away?”

“I promised Gordon to-day that I would.”

She swayed a little, and he caught her.  “I had to promise, Leila.  Don’t you see?  I haven’t a penny, and I can’t confess to them that I’ve married you.  I wanted to tell him that you were mine—­that all your sweetness and dearness belonged to me.  I wanted to shout it to the world.  But I haven’t a penny, and I’m proud, and I won’t let Gordon think I’ve been a—­fool.”

“But Dad would help us.”

“Do you think I’d beg him to give me what he hasn’t offered, Leila?  I’ve got to show them that I’m not a boy.”

She struggled to bring herself out of the strange numbness which gripped her.  “If I could only tell Dad.”

“Surely it can be our own sweet secret, dearest.”

She laid her cheek against his arm, in a dumb gesture of surrender, and her little bare left hand crept up and rested like a white rose petal against the blackness of his coat.