It was when he returned from the ceremony of putting on his uniform that this reproach seemed verified. The mail had brought a note from Ruth Macdonald saying “Jean has just been sent home for a nerve rest. I believe the trouble is mostly loneliness. If you could be with her for a while you might tide it over.”
The stenographer covertly sizing up the Representative, with the popular feminine admiration for a uniform, wondered if his courage had suddenly failed him that he went so white. The idea wasn’t convincing, however. The afternoon mail offered a more interesting explanation. With amazing constructive genius she reported
that Miss Evison had written offering to take him back—“and him signed up,” she lamented tragically. The theory gained weight, but travelled faster, when Billy was seen taking the first train for the city.
Even Ruth became a victim to circumstantial evidence. The next day she found Jean alone, and troubled.
“Billy’s enlisted,” she shuddered.
Ruth experienced all the cold terror that the news has given women the world over when the men they cared about joined the army. She didn’t say anything—people are so sick of the glib platitudes about the glory of sacrifice when they can’t drive from their imaginations the actual torture of soul and body. Besides it never mattered whether Ruth put her sympathy into words or not. It came to you from the understanding kindness in her eyes, the quick, warm pressure of her hands, and a thousand little thoughtfulnesses which anticipated your needs. Her concern was perhaps too evident, for Jean hurried on to explain.
“Oh, it isn’t just that he’s going. I was expecting that, but everyone is saying he’s going broken-hearted. Look—”
She indicated a paragraph in the morning paper which stated that Mr. and Mrs. Evison announced the marriage of their daughter, Marjorie Angela, to Dr. Knight.
Then Billy came in. He didn’t look broken-hearted. In fact, for a man who had just lost the love of a life time he seemed in a much too healthy frame of mind to have any sentiment at all. As a matter of fact, of course, he hadn’t seen the little announcement; he had some time ago stopped reading the social columns where Miss Evison’s name figured, but with sisterly consideration Jean left the paper in his room where he could read it and have his battle out by himself. Ruth shared this consideration. When the evening papers, crowded with the latest draught of casualties, found space to describe at length the flowers and dresses at some tea given in honor of “the popular Miss Evison,” the girls so obviously avoided any comment that Billy rather wondered if he shouldn’t draw their attention to the fact that Miss Evison would be charming indeed in the gown of some imported-sounding stuff with pearls and lilies of the valley. Such wooden creatures men can be, where a little tragedy would seem the appropriate thing.
Jean’s nerves were soon restored to smooth running order, for which the doctor gave no small share of credit to Ruth’s efforts to keep her out of doors. The county battalion was training near the city, and every evening Billy could get off, the three of them would tramp out in moccasins and general Indian accoutrements to the edge of the city, to toboggan down a snow-crusted