Even though occupied with other thoughts, I was surprised that my rescuer didn’t respond to my civility, for another result of the war is the ease with which the men and women who have been engaged in it get on terms of natural acquaintanceship. When artificial barriers are removed, it is extraordinary how quickly we go back to primitive human simplicity. Social and sex considerations have thus been minimized to a degree which, it seems to me, will make it difficult ever to re-establish them in their old first place. They say it was an advance in civilization when we ceased to see each other as primarily males and females and knew we were men and women. Possibly the war will lead us a step farther still and reveal us as children of one family. That a nurse shouldn’t have a friendly word for a partly incapacitated man struck me, therefore, as odd, though my mind would not have dwelt on the circumstance if she hadn’t released my arm as abruptly as she had taken it. Having helped me to reach a comparatively empty quarter of the deck, she had counted, apparently, on the slowness and awkwardness of my movements to slip away before I could turn round. When I managed this feat she was already some yards down the length of the deck, hurrying back toward the crowd from which we had emerged. I saw then that she was too little to be tall and too tall to be considered little. Moreover, she carried herself proudly, placing her dainty feet daintily, and walking with that care which people display when they are not certain of their ability to walk straight. Reaching one of the entrances, she went in, exactly as I had seen a woman pass through a doorway two years four months and three weeks before. I was sure it was she—and yet I told myself it couldn’t be. I told myself it couldn’t be, for the reason that I had been deceived so frequently before that I had grown distrustful of my senses. All through the intervening time I had been getting glimpses of a slight figure here, of an alert movement there, of the poise of a head, of the wave of a hand—that for an instant would make my heart stop beating; but in the end it had meant nothing but the stirring of old memories. In this case I could have been convinced if the coincidence had not put too great a strain on all the probabilities. I was to learn later that there was no coincidence; but I must tell my story in its right order. The right order takes me back to my return to New York, after my week-end at Mrs. Grace’s, on the morning of June 29, 1914. During the two or three hours of jogging down the length of Long Island in the train I tried to keep out of my mind all thoughts but one; having deposited my bags at my rooms, I should go to Stinson’s. With regard to this intention I was clearly aware of a threefold blend of reaction.