"Was it for some other girl," was hovering on her lips. But she did not ask the question. As a matter of fact, she didn't want to hear the answer if it was affirmative. "You don't remember," he said quietly. "I put in some time training recruits not far from here. No, of course you don't remember, because I never told you. It was in between my first seeing you, and the other time when I was going around with you and Billy and Lucille. After I saw you that first time, when I had to come back here, near as it was to my old haunts,--well, I didn't know, of course, whether I was ever going to marry you or not. But--there was the cabin, my property, and I had time off occasionally and nothing to do with it. So--well, it was for the you I thought might possibly be. It made you realer, don't you see?" Marjorie sank down as he finished, on the broad, soft window-seat; and began to cry uncontrollably. "Oh--oh--it seems so pitiful!" he made out that she was saying finally. "I--I'm so sorry!" Francis laughed gallantly. "Oh, you needn't be sorry!" he said, smiling at her, though with an obvious effort. "I had a mighty good time doing it, my dear. Why, the things you said, and the way you acted while I was doing it for you--you've no idea how nice they were. You sat just----" "Oh, that was why the book was on the window-seat, and the other things----" "That was why," nodded Francis. "And the stool close up to the lounge-chair----" He nodded. "You lay there and I sat by you on the stool," he said. "And you whispered the most wonderful things to me----" "I didn't!" said Marjorie, flushing suddenly. "You know perfectly well all the time that was going on I--the real Me--was being a filing-clerk in New York, and running around with Lucille, and being bored with fussy people in the office, and hunting up letters for employers and hoping they wouldn't discover how much longer it took me to find them than it did really intelligent people----" "No," said Francis, suddenly dejected, "you didn't. But--it was a nice dream. And I think, considering all that's come and gone, you needn't begrudge it to me." "I don't," said Marjorie embarrassedly. "I--I only wish you wouldn't talk about it, because it partly makes me feel as if my feelings were hurt, and partly makes me feel terribly self-conscious." "Then perhaps it _was_ you, a little," said Francis quietly. Marjorie moved away from him, and went into the kitchen again, with her head held high to hide the fact that her cheeks were burning. He hadn't any right to do that to her. Why, any amount of men might be making desperate love to dream-Marjories--Mr. Logan, for instance,--only his love-making would probably be exceedingly full of quotations, and rather slow and involved. She turned, dimpling over her shoulder at Francis, who had been standing in rather a dream, where she had left him.