"How long is what going to last?" she asked him, her frank gaze finding his.
"You know what I mean," said the young man boyishly. "Gee, Ruth! the war is over. You know what I want. And I feel as though I deserved some consideration after what I have been through."
She smiled, but still looked at him levelly.
"Well, how about it?" he demanded.
"Do you think we know our own minds? Altogether, I mean?" asked the girl. "You are in a dreadfully unsettled state. I can see that, Tom. And I have only just begun with Wonota. I could not stop now."
"I don't ask you to stop a single, solitary thing!" he cried with sudden heat. "I expect to get to work myself—at something. I feel a lot of energy boiling up in me," and he laughed.
"But, say, Ruth, I want to know just what I am going to work for? Is it all right with you? Haven't found anybody else you like better than your old chum, have you?"
Ruth laughed, too. Yet she was serious when she gave him both her hands.
"I am very sure, Tom, dear, that that could never be. You will always be the best beloved of all boys——"
"Great Scott, Ruth!" he interrupted. "When do you think I am going to be a man?"