Tabs couldn't quite make up his mind whether he ought to laugh or frown. The suspicion had crossed his mind that this composed imp of a girl, who could look so immensely the young lady when she liked, was playing a sly game with him. However he pretended to take her seriously. "In most social sets names are fairly permanent."
Terry laughed outright and looked away from him, following the river with her eyes. "There's nothing permanent about Maisie. I think that's her attraction; that's what makes people forgive her everything. She starts each day afresh—it really is a new day for her, with no old hates or griefs or
dreads to drag her down. She has no regrets because she remembers nothing. Whatever happened yesterday she puts out of mind; she forgets everything except her willingness to be friends."
"Her names as well, according to your account."
"Yes, there's no denying that. Until the war ended, if you'd not seen her for a month, you were never quite sure how you ought to address her. Even now one's liable to make a mistake. To-day she's Maisie Lockwood; to-morrow she may be Maisie Anything—Mrs. Adair Easterday, perhaps."
Under her willful mystifications his calmness was getting ruffled. While he listened to her, he kept comparing this day with the other day that his imagination had painted. The world was to have been so much better and kinder when the agony of the trenches was ended. It was in order that it might be better that so many men had not come back. And this was the kinder world—a world in which men, saved from the jaws of death, met the girls they had loved as strangers, in whose presence, if they were to avoid offense, they must pick their words! A world full of men like Adair, who had been honorable until others had made them safe by their sacrifice, and of women like Maisie of the many names, who forgot her yesterdays that she might seize her selfish personal happiness!
"Terry," he spoke with a show of patience, "do you think it's a matter about which to jest? There's your sister and her kiddies; their future's at stake. If I'm to be of any help——" He broke off, for a voice inside his brain had started talking, "You're
old. That's exactly the way in which her father speaks to her." Was it her thoughts that he had heard? Her face was lowered; he could see nothing but the top of her golden head. Youth radiated from her; even in his anger it intoxicated him.
"So if I'm to help," he picked up his thread, "you mustn't mock. It isn't decent, Terry; the situation's too serious. Let me have the facts. How does she come by all these different names? Does she call herself something different with each new dress?"
Terry's eyes were wide and sorry. "No, with each new husband, but——" There came a break in her voice, "Oh, Tabs, I can't bear that you should be cross with me. You've been disappointed in me from the moment we met. We're not the same. And I know it's not all my fault. And——"