She turned again then and passed Dick, and the butler opened the big door and bowed her out of the house with an air of cheery good will.
Capt. Starkley-Davenport sat with his crutch and stick leaning against the table. On the cloth within easy reach his check book lay open before him. He was dressed with his usual completeness of detail and studied simplicity.
"Have you been boarded yet?" asked Jack.
"To-morrow," replied Dick. "All the M. O.'s are friends of mine, so I expect to wangle back to my battalion in two weeks."
Jack smiled and shook his head. "Your best friend in the world—or the maddest doctor in the army—wouldn't send you back to France on one leg, old son. Six weeks is nearer the mark."
"I can make it in two. You watch me."
"And is it still your old battalion, Dick? I have refrained from worrying you about it this time, because you deserved a rest—but I'm keener than ever to see you in my old outfit; and your third pip is there for you to put up on the very day of your transfer."
"I've been thinking about it, Jack—and of course I'd like to do it because you want me to. But the colonel wouldn't understand. No one who does not know you would understand. People would think I'd done it for the step, or that I hadn't hit it off, as an officer, with the old crowd. I want to stay, and yet I want to go. I want to fight on, as far as my luck will take me, with the 26th, and yet I'd be proud as a brigadier to sport three pips with your lot. As for doing something that you want me to do—why, to be quite frank with you, there isn't another man in the world I'd sooner please than you. Give me a few months more in which to decide. Give me until my next leave from France."
Dick had become embarrassed toward the end of his speech, and now he looked at Davenport with a red face. The other returned the glance with a flush on his thin cheeks.
"Bless you, Dick," he said and looked away. "Your next leave from France," he continued. "Six or seven months from now, with luck. They don't give me much more than that." Dick stared at his friend.