“She is very attractive.”

“She is more than that.  She is inspiring, the embodiment of your best ideals.  When she sings one wonders that all men have not fought for democracy.”

That was something to say of a woman.  Doctor McKenzie wondered if it could be said of his own daughter.  Set side by side with Drusilla, Jean seemed a childish creature, unstable, swayed by the emotion of the moment.  Yet her fire matched Drusilla’s, her dreams outran Drusilla’s dreams.

Two officers passed the table.

“How any man can keep out of it,” Drusilla said.  “Some day I shall put on a uniform and pass for a boy—­”

“Why not go over as you are?”

“They won’t let me now.  But some day they will.  I can drive a car—­there ought to be a place for me.”

“There is one for me,” he said, “and my decision must be made tonight.  They are asking me to head a hospital staff in France.  A letter came this morning, and I’ve got to answer it.”

Her eyes went to the flame-white maiden on the other side of the table.  “What does Jean say?”

“I haven’t asked her.  She wouldn’t keep me back.  But I am all she has, and it would hurt.”

“It would hurt.  But you are not all that she has—­you might as well try to sweep back the sea as to stop what is going on over there.  I have been sitting here green with envy.  Oh, if love might only come to me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Heaven-sent—­never a doubt, never a speculation; just knowing and believing—­souls stripped bare of all pretence.”

How splendid she was—­how beautiful!  He bent down to her.  “Why shouldn’t it come to you?”

“Men don’t love me that way.  They admire and respect and then love.  But Jean?  She’s a moon maiden, luring them to—­madness.”  She smiled up at him.

“Captain Hewes says you are the supreme type—­the perfect American.”

“Yes, but he thinks of me as a type.  Some day perhaps he will think of me as a woman.”

She brought the conversation back to Jean.  “You need not let the thought of her loneliness trouble you.”

“You think then that I am going to lose her?”

“You have lost her already.”

Sparks burned in the Doctor’s eyes.  “I don’t believe it.  She has known him a few days—­and I’ve given her my whole life.”

“‘Forsaking all others,’” murmured Drusilla.

“Yet she loves me.”

“It isn’t that she loves you less—­she loves him more.”

“Don’t,” he lifted his hand.  “I am not sure that I can stand it.”

“It makes your way clear.  That’s why I have said it.  There will be nothing now to keep you back from France.”

Once upon a time she had said to Derry, “I can feel things, and I can make others feel.”  She had, perhaps, tonight, been a little cruel, but she had been cruel with a purpose.

All the way home Doctor McKenzie was very silent.  When he kissed his daughter before she went upstairs, he held her close and smoothed her hair, but not a word did he say of the thing which had come to him.