"Thusis, I don't want this junk! Do you know what I am going to take with me?"
"What, darling?"
"My poems to you; the portrait of the Admiral; and my photograph of The Laughing Girl.... And nothing else whatever."
I picked up the photograph from my dresser as I spoke and slipped it into my breast pocket.
"Are we to start housekeeping with the portrait of the Admiral and your heavenly poems of which I never before heard?" she exclaimed, enchanted.
"Not housekeeping," I said smiling, and drawing her into my arms.
"Aren't we going to keep house, Michael?" she asked, her surprised eyes uplifted to mine.
"After the war," said I.
For a full minute she stood gazing at me. Then:
"I understand." And she offered her lips for the first time to any man. And for the first time I kissed her.