“Oh, he is doing nicely,” she said brightly,—­the brightness assumed to hide the fear in her heart that some day David might look like that.

Thompson laughed disagreeably.  “Sure, they always do nicely at first.  But when the bugs get ’em, they’re gone.  They think they’re better, they say they are getting well,—­God!”

Carol looked at him with questioning reproach in the shadowed eyes.  “It does not hurt us to hope, at least,” she said gently.  “It does no harm, and it makes us happier.”

“Oh, yes,” came the bitter answer.  “Sure it does.  But wait a few years.  Bugs eat hope and happiness as well as lungs.”

Carol quivered.  “You make me afraid,” she said.

“Thompson is an old croak,” interrupted one of the younger men, smiling encouragement.  “Don’t waste your time on him,—­talk to me.  He is such a grouch that he gives the bugs a regular bed to sleep in.  He’d have been well years ago if he hadn’t been such a chronic kicker.  Cheer up, Mrs. Duke.  Of course your husband will get along.  Got it right at the start, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes, right at the very start.”

“That’s good.  Most people fool around too long and then it’s too late, and all their own fault.  Sure, your husband is all right.  It’s too bad Thompson can’t die, isn’t it?  He’s got too mean a disposition to keep on living with white folks.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t say that,” disclaimed Carol quickly.  “He—­he is just not quite like the people I have known.  I didn’t know how to take him.  He was only joking of course.”  She smiled forgivingly at him, and Thompson had the grace to flush a little.

“I am Jimmy Jones,” said the second man.  “I was a bartender in little old Chi.  Far cry from a missionary to a bartender, but I’ll take my chances on Paradise with Thompson any day.”

“A—­a bartender.”  Carol rubbed her slender fingers in bewilderment.

“I am Arnold Barrows, formerly a Latin professor. Amo, mas, mat,” said the third man suddenly.  “I am looking for my Paradise right here on earth, and I am sorry you are married.  My idea of Paradise is a girl like you and a man like me, and everything else go hang.”

Carol drew herself up as though poised for flight, a startled bird taking wing.

Thompson and Jones laughed at her horrified face, but the professor maintained his solemn gravity.

“He is just a fool,” said the bartender encouragingly.  “Don’t bother about him.  It is not you in particular, he is nuts on all the girls.  Cheer up.  We’re not so bad as we sound.  I have a cottage near you.  Tell the parson I’ll be in to-morrow to give him the latest light on the bonfires in perdition.  I know all about them.  Tell him we’ll organize a combination prayer-meeting; he can lead the prayer and I’ll give advanced lessons in bunny-hugs and fancy-fizzes.”

“Good night,—­good night,—­good night,” gasped Carol.