Archey Forbes came back in the beginning of May and the first call he
made was to the house on the hill. He had brought with him a collection
of souvenirs--a trench-made ring, shrapnel fragments of curious shapes,
the inevitable helmet and a sword handle with a piece of wire attached.
"It was part of our work once," he said, "to find booby traps and make
them harmless. This was in a barn, looking as though some one had tried
to hide his sword in the hay. It looked funny to me, so I went at it easy
and found the wire connected to a fuse. There was enough explosive to
blow up the barn and everybody around there, but it wouldn't blow up a
hill of bears when we got through with it."
He coloured a little through his bronze. "I thought you might like these
things," he awkwardly continued.
"Like them? I'd love them!" said Mary, her eyes sparkling.
"I brought them for you."
They were both silent for a time, looking at the souvenirs, but presently
their glances met and they smiled at each other.
"Of course you're going back to the factory," she said; and when he
hesitated she continued, "I shall rely on you to let me know how things
are going on."
Again he coloured a little beneath his bronze and Mary found herself
watching it with an indefinable feeling of satisfaction. And after he was
gone and she was carrying the souvenirs to the den, she also found
herself singing a few broken bars from the Blue Danube.
"Is that you singing!" shouted Helen from the library.
"Trying to."
Helen came hurrying as though to see a miracle, for Mary couldn't sing.
"Oh--oh!" she said, her eyes falling on the helmet. "Who sent it? Wally
Cabot?"
"No; Archey Forbes brought it."
"Oh-ho!" said Helen again. "Now I see-ee-ee!"
But if she did, she saw more than Mary.
"Perhaps she thinks I'm in love with him," she thought, and though the
reflection brought a pleasant sense of disturbance with it, it wasn't
long before she was shaking her head.
"I don't know what it is," she decided at last, "but I'm sure I'm not in
love with him."
As nearly as I can express it, Mary was in love with love, and could no
more help it than she could help the crease in her chin or the dreaminess
of her eyes. If Archey had had the field to himself, her heart might soon
have turned to him as unconsciously and innocently as a flower turns its
petals to the sun. But the day after Archey returned, Wally Cabot came
back and he, too, laid his souvenirs at Mary's feet.
It was the same Wally as ever.
He had also brought a piece of old lace for Aunt Cordelia, a jet necklace
for Aunt Patty, a prison-camp brooch for Helen. All afternoon he held
them with tales of his adventures in the air, rolling up his sleeve to
show them a scar on his arm, and bending his head down so they could see
where a German ace had nicked a bit of his hair out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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