"Yes, I'll miss him. He's a splendid fellow. I've never met one like him, so staunch and cheerful and game. Sometime I'd like to tell you about that trip we took. You'd be proud of him."
"I'm sure all his friends are," she said, smiling a queer little smile that was lost in the darkness.
"He was a very sick man, in a great deal of pain, and we had a rather dreadful time of it. Of course it hit him far harder than it did either West or me. But never a whimper out of him from first to last. Always cheerful, always hopeful, with a little joke or a snatch of a song, even when it looked as though we couldn't go on another day. He's one out of ten thousand."
"I heard him say that about another man—only I think he said one in fifty thousand," she made comment, almost in a murmur.
"Any girl would be lucky to have such a man for a husband," he added fatuously.
"Yes. I hope he'll find some nice one who will appreciate him."
This left no room for misunderstanding. Tom's brain whirled. "You—you and he haven't had any—quarrel?"
"No. What made you think so?"
"I don't know. I suppose I'm an idiot. But I thought—"
He stopped. She took up his unfinished sentence.