"Well," he said, "we are forbidden to tell the news, although there isn't any. But if you were to go to Newport you would see a big British cruiser lying there. And if you had your glass with you you could read her name." He gave her name, but I have forgotten it. "It is supposed to be a secret, and has not been in the papers, but everybody at Newport knows it. They can't help it. The officers go about very swagger and very stiff, carrying little canes. You may see me carrying a little cane one of these days, but I have not yet arrived at that dignity—or folly, whichever you call it."
I smiled. "Did you never carry a little cane in college?"
"Oh, sometimes, for the sake of doing it, because I had a right to. But this is real."
"When you come back from England, or France, or wherever you are going, perhaps you will carry a cane." He seemed startled, but only for a moment.
"What makes you think I am going over?"
"Bobby told us—in confidence. When?"
He seemed relieved. "If Bobby told you that lets me out. I was afraid I might have dropped it somehow. I don't know when, but soon, I think."
"Jack," said Eve suddenly—it was the first time I had heard her call Ogilvie Jack—"Jack, we will have a clambake for a farewell. I hope they will give you some days' notice of your going."
"Thank you," he returned, smiling. "It is more likely to be hours' notice. But I will come to your clambake if I can."