The Tempering Part 65

"But how did you come into this work?"

"It was logical enough. I graduated into it out of an East Side settlement, but I went into _that_ because it was all I could get to do.

I don't deserve any credit."

She sketched for him what her life had been here in ruined and desolate towns, and made him see vividly the picture of the reclamation work. She had been in places where the war tide had flowed near and spoke shudderingly of the stark things which a generous world had been slow to believe, and at the end he told her of McCalloway's death, but not of his true ident.i.ty, for that one secret he might not share with her.

"And now," he questioned, "now that I have found you--after these years of search?"

Her violet eyes met his, and he read in them an answer that sent turbulent and rejoicing currents, like wine, through his veins.

"There is no one else, Boone--but I've enlisted for the war."

He nodded. "I shall soon be in uniform, too," he said. "I'm going to come back here with some of those barbarians that I was born among--I think it's with them I'd rather visit the German trenches. But when the war is over, dearest--"

"_Apres la guerre_," she murmured. "How often have I heard that here!

After the war we shall have our lives."

A blind _poilu_ went by on the arm of a girl and, though his eyes were covered with a bandage and his free hand moved gropingly, his laugh was that of a lover, and not a hopeless one. Boone's fingers closed over those of the girl.

"After the war!" he breathed, in a low and vibrant voice.