Two days to Christmas, he thought, and he had sent her no remembrance. He stood at the window, tasting the cool thickness of the evening, breathing the fragrance of ylang-ylang: leaf and frond, stirred by the monsoon, purred in gentle contact. In the starlight the old stone church outlined its old-world, old-time architecture in friendly shadows which veiled the pitiful scars and age-stains: the bamboo shacks across the square--wry, flimsy, smutted by a hotly jealous sun--had yielded to the magic of the night to become little golden houses in which the fairies abode till the morning stars should fade. A present for her ... he pondered long, the while he stifled his desire to go outside and shout the joy that tugged at his restraint. Suddenly he started, tightened as the idea fastened upon him, then fairly ran to his desk. A hurried search for cable blanks and he wrote in desperate haste that consumed four misused forms before he accomplished an intelligible message: Miss Deane Hunter, Crampville, Vermont. Christmas greetings from palmed coast to snowy shore. Please cable will you accept so humble a Christmas offering as an equal share in the future of one RICHARD TERRY. Buttoning his blouse as he ran, he raced down out of the house and over to his orderly room, where he typed the message and sent it out by a soldier. The dozen Macabebes lounging in the _cuartel_, who had sprung to attention when he passed, stared at him and then at each other--this joyous, whistling boy was new to them! He crossed the dark plaza: natives, looking out of raised windows, wondered who that Americano was who walked in and out of the shadows of the great acacias, singing: When in thy dreaming Moons like these shall shine again: Being natives they did not understand the English words, but being natives and instinctively attuned to the most ancient of emotions that throbbed in the low baritone, they listened silently and stared out into the night long after the singer had passed. He reached the house, hesitated. Lindsey had said that the fellows wanted him to come over to the Club ... he had neglected opportunities to be with these good friends. He sailed his cap up through an open window and crossing a corner of the square went up into the gayly lighted building.