She nodded, eying him eagerly. "Yes, I painted them this afternoon. You see, it was a rush order.... As to Nick, I don't think it will come to his enlisting. I've never considered it, really. He's awfully mixed up in government finances, don't you know. We all tell him he's more valuable where he is." Latham smiled faintly. "What does Nick say to that?" "Oh, I don't know." She shrugged. "Nothing very definite. War has been a taboo subject with him--I mean from the first when you all went in. I know he has strong feelings about it, terribly strong. But he never talks about them." "He went in strong on the financial end, didn't he?" asked the Englishman. "Some one in London told me he'd made a lot of oof." She nodded, coloring. "Yes, oceans of money.... Not that we needed it," Evelyn added, a trifle defensively. "I know; it just came," was Latham's comment. "Well, it all helped us out of a nasty mess." Evelyn was thinking and did not reply immediately. When she did speak it was apparent that in changing the subject she had followed a natural impulse without intention or design. "Jeffery," she said, "do you know I haven't been able to make you out since you arrived here--nor Sybil either," she added, nodding toward Latham's wife, whose classic, flaxen-haired profile was turned toward them. The man was smiling curiously. "I didn't realize we had changed so." "Well, you have, both of you. You talk the same and act the same--except a--a sort of reserve; something; I don't know just what.... Somehow, you, and Sybil, too, seem as though you felt strange, aloof, out of place. You used to be so absolutely--well, natural and at home with us all--" "My word!" Latham laughed but made no further comment. "Of course," Evelyn went on, "you've been through a lot, I can appreciate that. When I got Sybil's letter I simply wept: twenty-four hours in a muddy shell-hole; invalided for good, with an arm you can't raise above your shoulder; a horrid scar down your face...." "It does make rather a poor face to look at, doesn't it?" Latham flushed and hurried on. "Well, I've no complaint." She glanced at the cross on his olive-drab coat. "Of course not! How absurd, Jeffery! But how did Sybil ever stand it? How did she _live_ through it? I mean the parting, the months of suspense, word that you were missing, then mortally wounded?... Her brother killed by gas?" Latham glanced at his wife, a soft light in his eyes. "Poor Sybil," he replied. "She was a brick, Evelyn--a perfect brick. I don't know how she got through it. But one does, you know." "Yes, one does, I suppose." Evelyn sighed. "But how? _I_ couldn't; I simply couldn't. Why, Jeffery, I can't bear even to think of it." Latham shook his head negatively at the footman, who stood at his side, and then turned smiling to Evelyn. "Oh, come! Of course you could. You don't understand now, but you will. There's a sort of grace given, I fancy."