"Don't trouble about any more metaphors," I told her. "You promise to go home within a year?"
"I firmly intend to," she replied, "but you can't always depend on a woman's plans."
"If I can't depend on you I have very little left to believe in," I declared.
"I'm pretty sure I'll come," she said, "and—and God bless you, John!"
So we separated there, in the silent street, before the nurses' home where she had taken a room a few days after her graduation. I couldn't trust myself to say anything more.
The door closed upon her and I slowly walked back to my quarters, with a head full of dreary thoughts, and several times narrowly escaped speeding taxis and brought down upon myself some picturesque language.
I fear that I was hardly in a mood to appreciate its beauty.
CHAPTER II
From John Grant's Diary
Four weeks ago, this evening, I sat with Dora in that bright dining room at the Rochambeau. My description of that last meeting of ours is a rather flippant one, I fancy, but some feminine faces are improved by powder, and some men's sentiments by a veneer of assumed cheerfulness. That cut of mine has not the slightest intention of healing by first intention; it is gaping as widely as ever, as far as I can judge. Yet I am glad I made no further effort. I suppose a man had better stop before he gets himself disliked.