She reached for the dispatch blanks before she remembered that, though her handwriting would not be delivered in Decatur, still here she would be leaving a record in writing which was not like Cynthia Gail’s. So she merely took up the pen in her gloved fingers and gave it to Hubert Lennon who had not yet put his gloves on. “You write for me, please,” she requested. “Mr. Charles F. Gail,” she directed and gave the home street number in Decatur. “Thanks for your wire telling me to go ahead. I knew you’d back me. Love. Thia.” “What?” Lennon said at the last word. “Just sign it ‘Thia.’” He did so; she charged the dispatch to her room and they went out. The color was still warm in her face. If one of the men in the lobby was a German stationed to observe how she did and if he had seen her start the mistake of writing the telegram, he had seen also an instant recovery, she thought. A large, luxurious limousine, driven by a chauffeur in private livery, moved up as they came to the curb. When they settled side by side on the soft cushions, the driver started away to the north without requiring instructions. “You were fifteen years old when I last had a ride with you,” Hubert obligingly informed her. That was nine years ago, in nineteen nine, Cynthia made the mental note; she had become twenty-four years old instead of twenty-two, since the morning. “But I knew you right away,” he went on. “Aunt Emilie would have come for you but you see when she telephoned and found you weren’t in at half-past one, she knew she couldn’t call for you and get to Mrs. Corliss’ on time. And she’s a stickler for being on time.” So it was to Mrs. Corliss’ they were going--to her great home on the drive. The car was keeping on northward along the snow-banked boulevard with the white and arctic lake away to the right and, on the left, the great grounds of Mrs. Potter Palmer’s home. “She’d have sent a maid for you,” Hubert explained, “but I said it was stupid silly to send a maid after a girl who’s going into the war zone.” “I’m glad you came instead for another ride with me,” Cynthia said. He reddened with pleasure. In whatever circles he moved, it was plain he received no great attention from girls. “I tried to get into army and navy both, Cynthia,” he blurted, apropos of nothing except that he seemed to feel that he owed explanation to her as to why he was not in uniform. “But they turned me down--eyes. Even the Canadians turned me down. But Aunt Emilie’s giving an ambulance; and they’re going to let me drive it. They get under fire sometimes, I hear. On the French front.” “They’re often under fire,” Cynthia assured. “A lot of ambulance men have been killed and wounded; so that’s no slacker service.” “Not if you can’t get in anything better,” he said, “but mighty little beside what Gerry Hull’s been doing.”