“Yes. And just before he got his majority they gave him the Military Cross.”
“He must be an awful swell,” said Doggie.
She replied with some heat. “He hasn’t changed the least little bit in the world.”
Doggie shook his head. “No one can go through it, really go through it, and come back the same.”
“You don’t insinuate that Oliver hasn’t really gone through it?”
“Of course not, Peggy dear. They don’t throw M.C.’s about like Iron Crosses. In order to get it Oliver must have looked into the jaws of hell. They all do. But no man is the same afterwards. Oliver has what the French call panache——”
“What’s panache?”
“The real heroic swagger—something spiritual about it. Oliver’s not going to let you notice the change in him.”
“We went to the Alhambra, and he laughed as if such a thing as war had never been heard of.”
“Naturally,” said Doggie. “All that’s part of the panache.”