She withdrew her hands and lay back against the
cushions. "No amount of courage——" She broke off and tried afresh. "Being brave wouldn't put him again into my arms. You're wondering whom I'm talking about—Reggie Pollock, my only husband. The other two didn't count, any more than Adair counts. I don't say it unkindly. I do want you to believe that. They were passers-by—that was all. They hung their hats in the hall and, somehow, they stopped. They were nice boys, both of them. It seemed a kind of war-work to let them marry me. You see, they needed me; so when they said they loved me, I didn't have the heart to turn them out. I suppose I was too amiable. But they didn't count—not at all."
"The war's over," Tabs reminded her with quiet humor. "How long is this amiability going to last?"
She smiled dreamily. "Adair again! You don't leave him alone for long. If you think that I ever let him make love to me, you're mistaken. It's only that he's unhappy and I can do something for him."
Tabs wasn't at all sure that it was only that. This fatal amiability might have raised quite different expectations in Adair. Like her two latest husbands, he might take a notion to hang his hat in her hall. If he did, would she abate her amiability sufficiently to tell him to hang it somewhere else?
She was drifting; what she needed was either a tow-rope or a rudder. He sent his gaze questing through the shadows.
"Those five photographs, all of the same man—they're of Pollock?"
"Yes."
"He was one of the first of all the aces, wasn't he? It was he who brought down the Zeppelin over Brussels and went missing a few days later. You see, I remember his record. He was outstandingly brave at a time when the world was full of brave men. And you tell me he loved you?"