"I find a great deal to like," she said, "but it wouldn't be fair to give you anything less than love."
"At least you'll let me have your friendship—to take back with me."
She looked at him, startled. "Oh, you are going back?"
"I may get my orders any day. There are things I can be doing over there."
Some day she was to see him "over there," to see him against a background of fire and flame and smoke, to see him transfigured by heroism, and she was to remember then with an aching heart this moment when he had told her that he loved her.
It was dark when Derry brought Jean home. There had been a sunset and an afterglow, and a twilight, and an evening star to ravish them as they rode, to say nothing of the moon—they came to the Doctor's door quite dizzy with the joy of it.
Derry was loath to leave. "Can't we all go to a play tonight?" he asked Jean's father. "You and Miss Bridges and the two of us?"
"Certainly not. Jean has done enough to-day. She isn't made of iron."
"She is made of fire and dew," Derry flung at him, lightly.
"Heavens, has it come to that? Well, she is still my daughter. I won't have her ill on my hands."