The two girls shook hands, and Agnes began searching for her gloves and purse, hurriedly declining Eric's invitation.
"I used to know your brother quite well before the war," said Barbara. "I was so thankful to hear your good news."
Agnes looked up with a quick smile.
"We never quite lost hope," she said.
"Eric told me that you and your people had been out to see him in Switzerland. How did you find him?"
The smile died away in wistfulness.
"Well, he's alive, and that's the great thing," Agnes answered. "The doctors out there don't seem to think that he'll ever be able to do much work with his head again; he'll probably have to give up the bar and live out of doors. You can understand that, when a man's just begun to get a practice together——"
"But is that quite certain?" Barbara interrupted.
"N-no. But it seems probable. There's a report that some of the bad cases are going to be sent home. Then we shall see."
Eric watched the faces of the two girls. Barbara's expressed nothing more than the conventional sympathy of one stranger hearing of another's misfortune; a few months earlier Agnes had not known that Jack and Barbara were even acquainted.