Bianca extended a tea cup to her visitor.
"Is this the way you like your tea, Carlo? Perhaps your taste has changed, but I remember this is the way you liked it in the past."
"But my tastes don't change, Bianca. It is your mistake to believe they do, neither my tastes in tea nor in friends ever alter."
At this Carlo and Bianca both laughed, although with a slight embarrassment.
"I am going back home too, Bee, very soon," the young man added. "This is one of the many things I wanted to tell you this afternoon, besides finding out that you were all right again. I talked things over with Colonel Winfield weeks ago and told him I was getting pretty restless and anxious to return to my work in the United States. I explained to him that a singer can't wait for his career as well as other men, since a voice does not always last a long time. However, I think this argument did not make much of an impression upon the old Colonel, but something or other must have, because he asked for an honorable discharge for me and I'm to go home when it arrives. I think the Colonel's chief reason was that I am not much good as a soldier here in Coblenz. He needs men like Major Hersey and Sergeant Hackett. Hackett is soon to be a first lieutenant, he should have been one long ago."
"I don't see why you have not also been given a commission, Carlo," Bianca replied, a little jealous for her friend.
Carlo laughed.
"I haven't the stuff in me for an officer, Bee. No one knows this better than I do. I am a fair soldier when there is something doing, but a poor one in routine. That is the real test. Don't mind, Bianca, and don't look aggrieved. I have simply tried to do my military duty like millions of other better men, but now I am going back to the thing I am made for. I was only a soldier for the time I felt myself needed.
"By the way I have been learning to sing "Siegfried," Bianca, studying with my old German singing master. He says I sing the music very poorly, but it has been fun trying to learn.
"I know one who lies
Fast in slumber deep
Sleeping age long sleep,
Waiting for thy waking."