"Why?" he asked.
"Because you haven't looped any loops through your nose."
He actually laughed! He looked delightful when he laughed.
"I was trying something of the sort one day, and failing," I explained. "Mrs. Carstairs said she had a friend who could do it, and his name was Terence Burns."
"I've almost forgotten that old stunt," he smiled indulgently. "Think of Mrs. Carstairs remembering it! Why, I haven't had time to remember it myself, much less try it out, since I was young."
"That is a long time ago!" I ventured, smoking hard.
"You see," he explained quite gravely, smoking harder, "I went into the war in 1915. It wasn't our war then, for I'm an American, you know. But I had a sort of feeling it ought to be everybody's war. And besides, I'd fallen out of love with life about that time. War doesn't leave a man feeling very young, whether or not he's gone through what I have."
"I know," said I. "Even we women don't feel as young as we hope we look. I'm twenty-one and a half, and feel forty."
"I'm twenty-seven, and feel ninety-nine," he capped me.
"Shell shock is—the devil!" I sympathized. "But men get over it. I know lots who have." I took another cigarette and pushed the case toward him.