"But you always seemed to understand so well. I"—he paused in that constraint there so often was between them in things delicately intimate—"I've never told you, Katie, how fine I thought you were. So big about it."
"It's not so difficult," said Kate, with a touch of her old smile, "to be 'big' about people who aren't marrying into the family."
It seemed that he, too, was not above cornering her. "You know, Katie, it was your attitude in the beginning that—"
"Just don't bother calling my attention to that, Wayne," she said sharply. "Please credit me with the intelligence to see it for myself."
Then she went right to the heart of it. "Oh Wayne—think of Major
Barrett's knowing."
The dull red that came quickly to his face told how bitterly he had thought of it, though he only said quietly: "Damn Barrett."
"But you can't damn him. Suppose you were to be stationed at the same place!"
He laughed shortly. "Well that, at least, is something upon which I can set your fears at rest."
She looked up quickly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Katie, that my army days are over."