He drew her to him.  “Take off your veil,” he said, almost roughly.  “I want to see your hair.”

Divested of her headcovering, she was more like herself, but even then he was not content.  He loosed a hairpin here and there and ran his fingers through the crinkled gold.  “If you knew how I’ve dreamed of it, Jean-Joan.”

But he had not dreamed of the dearness of the little face.  “My darling, you have been pining, and I didn’t know it.”

“Well, didn’t you like my smiling letters?”

“So that was it?  You’ve been trying to cheer me up, and letting yourself get like this.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Didn’t you know that I’d want to be worried with anything that pertained to you?  What’s a husband for, dearest, if you can’t tell him your troubles?”

“Yes, but a soldier-husband, Derry, is different.  You’ve got to keep smiling—­”

Her lips trembled and she clung to him.  “It is so good to have you here, Derry.”

She admitted, later, that she had confided her troubles to her memory book.  “There weren’t any big things, really—­just missing you and all that—­”

He was jealous of the memory book.  “I shall read every word of it.”

“Not until you come back from the war—­and then we can laugh at it together.”

They fell into silence after that.  With his arms about her he thought that he might not come back, and she clinging to him had the same thought.  But neither told the other.

“Do you know,” she said at last, sitting up and sticking the hairpins into her crinkled knot.  “Do you know that it’s almost time for dinner, and that the General will wonder where I am?”

“I told Bronson not to tell him.”

“Oh, really, Derry?  Let’s make it a great surprise.”

Providentially the General was late.  He and the children came home to find the house quite remarkably illumined, and Margaret flushed and excited, and in white.

“Is it a party, Mother?” Teddy asked, lending his shoulder manfully to the General’s hand, as, with the chauffeur on the other side, they helped the old man up the stairs.

“No, but on such a rainy night Bronson and I thought we’d have a little feast.  Don’t you think that would be fun?”

The General was tired.  “I had planned not to come down again—­”

“Please do,” she begged,

Bronson, knowing his master’s moods, was on tip-toe with anxiety.  “I’ve your things all laid out, sir.”

“Well, well, I’ll see.”

Teddy, somewhat out of breath as they reached the top landing was inspired to remark, “We’ll be ’spointed if you don’t come down—­”

“You want me, eh?”

“Yes, I do.  There isn’t any other man—­”

The General chuckled.  “Well, that’s reason enough—.  You can count on me, Ted, for masculine support.”

The table was laid for six.  Teddy appearing presently in the dining room pointed out the fact to Bronson, who was taking a last look.