"You were in the army then?"
"Yes, I served an enlistment in the Philippines, and was invalided home; discharged at the Presidio. Someway I have been up against tough luck ever since I got back. I think the climate over there must have locoed me; anyhow the liquor did. Tonight the pendulum is swinging the other way."
"Why do you think that?"
"I have met you, have I not?"
There was no brightening of her eyes, no acknowledgment of the words.
"To have the misery of another added to your own requires no congratulations," she said gravely. "But I am glad you told me. I know there are many who return home like that. I can understand why much better now than I could once. I have had experience also. It is so easy to drift wrong, when there is no one to help you go right. I used to believe this world was just a beautiful playground. I never dreamed what it really means to be hungry and homeless, to be alone among strangers. I had read of such things, but they never seemed real, or possible. But I know it all now; all the utter loneliness of a great city. Why it is easier to fall than to stand, and, oh! I was so desperate tonight. I—I actually believe I had come to the very end of the struggle. Whatever happens—whatever possibly can happen to me hereafter—I shall never again be the same thoughtless creature, never again become uncharitable to others in misery." Her eyes dropped before mine, yet only to uplift themselves again, shining with brave resolution. "Would you care to tell me what it is with you? What it is you fight?"
"I am afraid I do not fight, except physically," I confessed soberly. "Probably that is the whole trouble. If I have ever had a grip I 've lost it. However I 'm willing to tell my story, although it's a poor one, just the uninteresting recital of a fool. My home was in New England, my father a fairly successful manufacturer. My mother died while I was a child, and I grew up without restraining influence. I led an ordinary boy's life, but was always headstrong, and willful, excelling physically. My delight was hunting, and the out-of-doors. However I kept along with my studies after a fashion, and entered the University. Here I devoted most of my time to students' pranks, and athletics, but got through two years before being expelled. Interesting, is n't it?"
"Yes," she said. "It is what I wish to know."
"This expulsion resulted In a row at home," I went on, disgusted at myself. "And I took French leave. For six months I knocked about, doing a little of everything, having rather a tough time, but too obstinate to confess my mistake and return. Of course I naturally fell in with a hard set, and finally enlisted. My regiment was sent to the Philippines, where we had some fighting. I liked that, and was a good enough soldier to be promoted to a sergeantcy. I reckon I had better have remained in the service, for when I was sent back to Frisco, because of wounds, and then discharged, I went to hell."
"And your father does n't know?"