“I know what let’s do! Suppose we slip upstairs and dress in our army clothes to show mother how we looked in the field! I think it would be jolly!”
Nathan complied. It took him a quarter-hour to make the change.
“It’s not exactly what I’d wear on parade,” he apologized grimly on his return.
“I imagine Siberia was no tea party!” returned Mrs. Theddon. She was as happy as a young girl herself this night, though she had faded much through worry over her daughter. Her hair was almost iron gray now with that anxiety.
Madelaine was in the center of the veranda, turning about to show her mother a rent in her cape where a stray Bolshevik bullet had penetrated one night beyond Omsk, when old Murfins appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Ruggles is calling, Miss Madelaine,” he announced. “Mr. Gordon Ruggles!”
Gordon!
From the Great High Noon the one slender shadow cast upon Madelaine’s happiness had been the thought of Gordon. She stood for a moment irresolute now. Then to the servant she said evenly:
“Please show him upstairs—the library. I’ll be up directly.” Madelaine turned to Nathan. “I want him to meet you. But not just yet. I must talk to him first.”
Gordon was standing before the west window, looking down on the Connecticut with his back to the room when Madelaine finally entered. It was the same apartment where she had bade him good-bye—offered him her lips—which he had not taken. He was still in his uniform and she knew when she beheld it, as well as the man inside, that he had not played at war.