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supposed to be a lady in her own right, the daughter of a lord. With a little mouse like Patches he’d make no bones about it.
    He gathered himself for the effort. For some reason he could not explain at the moment it was going to be more difficult even than asking her to go away with him. That had not been hard at all. It seemed just to have happened. He said: “Gee, Patches, you’re really a pretty wonderful kid. I’ll try to make it the best ten days anybody ever had . . .”
    “Oh, Jerry! It will be beautiful.”
    “Look, Patches. There’s . . . I think there’s something I ought to tell you . . .”
    “Tell me, Jerry.”
    “About our going away together, I mean . . .”
    She was alerted now and stared at him with her soft eyes wide with question. Jerry thought: “Oh, my God, it’s like hitting her! But it’s got to be done or we’ll both be sorry.” He tried to put on a lightness and command he could not feel.
    “Look,” he said, “I’ve got a girl back home. You know how it is. We’re engaged. We’re going to be married when I go back.” He had a momentary impulse to go on and tell her more about Catharine and what she meant to him, but he decided against it. He waited for Patches to say something, but she kept silent and he had to go on.
    “I mean about us two—I like you a hell of a lot. There’s nobody I’d want to be with but you. But I mean after we get back—well, you understand, my tour’ll be up in a month or so and I’ll be going back home and . . .”
    Patches’ lips moved, but there was so much noise and clatter in the huge room all about them and on the dance floor that he had to bend his head to hear what she was saying.
    “I understand, Jerry.”
    The hurt was so deep that it was all she could do to keep her hands from clutching at her heart to ease the pain. It was not so much the shock of hearing of Jerry’s engagement. They all had girls back home. It was the cruelty with which he had closed the door and locked out her dreams that left her with the sense of utter desolation. She had always known that Jerry would go away in the end, but she had trusted him not to destroy the image of him she carried in her heart, to leave her, if nothing else, the illusion that he was hers.
    He was saying: “I thought I’d better tell you now,” and for a moment she thought of getting up and fleeing from the table so that she would no longer hear him, when he suddenly took both her hands in his and leaned across the table and said with surprising tenderness and deep sincerity: “Gee, Patches, I feel rotten. It’s all right with me if you want to change your mind.”
    Half he wished she would in order to punish him, and half he was desperately afraid that she might; and something of his desperation conveyed itself to her in the hard grip of his fingers and the little pull of his arms as though he were tugging at her heart.
    She said again softly: “It’s all right, Jerry. I understand,” and then added: “I shan’t change my mind. It will be beautiful. And when it’s over we’ll shake hands and say goodbye . . .”
    Jerry’s heart was so full that for a moment it threatened to choke him, but he managed to say: “Gee, Patches, you’re a soldier.”; and then he leaned forward gently and kissed her mouth for the first time.
    The roll of drums and the crashing of the first bars of the national anthems brought them to their feet. It was midnight and the dance was over. They stood side by side at attention, close together so that one could not see that their fingers were entwined and holding hard while The Star-Spangled Banner and God Save the King were played.
    When it was over, he raised his glass with the remainder of the Scotch in it and she lifted hers too. He said: “To Scotland . . . and us . . .” and she replied: “God bless . . .”
    Patches thought her heart would break.
    Jerry thumbed a jeep ride in to Kenwoulton Monday morning to meet Patches. They were picking up