"So we are earning our own living, now," he said. His admiration was transparent. He had earned his and knew what it meant to get a start.
Helen nodded.
"I've got forty pounds already to go with the thousand francs. Let's see, that is almost four hundred dollars in American money! I'm a proud wage-earner and even consider becoming a bloated bond-holder!"
She was smiling and laughing all the time, this changed, this free Helen, still uncousinly, a person apart, and buoyantly happy—until she caught a glimpse of herself in the small panel mirror opposite. Then her features relaxed.
"And you?" she asked, putting out her hand for her book, which she had laid on the seat. "Have you got passage back to America yet?"
"No. I——" And he told her briefly what he had done.
With the very announcement, the mirror warning and another warning which sprang from the memory of the scene under the tree at Mervaux were forgotten in the impulse which made her lean across the aisle in passionate interest.
"It was like you!" she exclaimed. "The old father and mother at home, what did they say?" She wanted to know all about it. "And Peter Smithers?" she added.
"Not heard from yet," Phil replied. "It's surprising how you recollect Peter."
"I'd like to make a cartoon of Peter; I don't know why, for I've never heard a dozen sentences about him. And in the artillery! Then you'll be doing the sort of thing we watched the soixante-quinze doing at Mervaux. And you're a real sub-lieutenant! Aren't you proud?"