“As for me,” said Brisson, “I’m in sight of nervous dissolution already;––I’m going back to my wife and children, thank God––” he smiled at Palla. “I’m grateful to the God you don’t believe in, dear little lady. And if He is willing, I’ll report for duty in two weeks.” He turned to Estridge:
“What about you?”
“I’ve cabled for orders but I have none yet. If they’re through with me I shall go back to New York and back to the medical school I came from. I hate the idea, too. Lord, how I detest it!”
“Why?” asked Palla nervously.
“I’ve had too much excitement. You have too––and so have Ilse and Brisson. I’m not keen for the usual again. It bores me to contemplate it. The thought of Fifth Avenue––the very idea of going back to all that familiar routine, social and business, makes me positively ill. What a dull place this world will be when we’re all at peace again!”
“We won’t be at peace for a long, long while,” said Ilse, smiling. She lifted a goblet in her big, beautifully shaped hand and drained it with the vigorous grace of a Viking’s daughter.
“You think the war is going to last for years?” asked Estridge.
“Oh, no; not this war. But the other,” she explained cheerfully.
“What other?”