"The truth is, I can't help knowing that you wondered when you first saw me and am wondering now—as any one has a right to wonder these days when they see a fellow like me in civilian clothes—"
Betty started and the color rushed to her face.
"No, I haven't—" she began, then stopped confused, remembering that she had been wondering just that thing only a few minutes, yes, only a minute before. "I mean I thought—"
"Yes, it's easy to guess what you thought," he interrupted, misinterpreting her sentence while the bitter look crept once more into his eyes. "It's easy enough to guess what everybody thinks. But," he straightened his shoulders and threw back his head, "I don't think anybody will have a right to think that very much longer. You see," he added, turning to her again and speaking more calmly, "I tried to enlist at the beginning of the war, but they told me there was something wrong here," he touched his chest, "with my lungs."
Betty gave an involuntary exclamation of pity.
"The doctor said it was just beginning," he went on slowly, "and he said—he was a good old scout, that doctor—that if I got out of the city where I could get fresh air, eggs, and milk—you know, the same old stuff—that I might succeed in curing myself up in a hurry and get in the game in time to bring in my share of helmets after all."
"Oh, so that's why you and your mother are away out here!" cried Betty eagerly, laying an impulsive little hand on his. "And you are well, aren't you? Why, you must be! You look the very picture of health."
Joe gulped a little, looked at the friendly little hand on his, tried to speak once or twice and failed, then—
"I feel just fine," he said, striving to make his voice sound natural. "I never cough any more, and I've got the appetite of a wolf—you saw how I ate to-night—" a faint smile lighted his eyes and found an answering one in Betty's. "Yet, I've been holding off for more than three weeks for fear—just for fear—everything isn't all right. You see, they've made a coward of me. I'm afraid of being refused twice."
"Oh, but you won't be!" cried Betty, with honest conviction in her voice. "I'm not much of a doctor, although I've met so many of them at Camp Liberty and heard them talk so much about different diseases that I feel I ought at least to qualify as an assistant," she paused to smile at herself and he thought he had never seen anything so pretty in his life, "and I would say that whatever your trouble has been, it is cured now. I'm sure of it."