She ignored even this. Standing erect, with her hands in the pockets of her ulster, with no feature to betray her but her eyes, she surmised, calmly, “Some of the other nurses or one of the patients must have given you a hint.” “None of them ever pronounced your name in my hearing.” “Then I give up guessing!” she said, with a touch of impatience. “Which is what I can’t do.” “But what have you to guess at?” “At what you’ve done it—at what you’re doing it—for.” She may have smiled behind the yashmak as she said, “What difference does it make to you?” “I dare say it doesn’t make any—except that I seem to be the person benefited.” “In time of war the soldier—the man who does the thing—is the person benefited.” “Oh no; there’s the cause.” “But surely, if we’ve learned anything during the past two years, it’s that what the soldier does for the cause can’t compare with what the cause does for the soldier.” I saw my opportunity and was quick to use it. “So that out of what you’ve been doing for me even you have got something.” She turned this neatly. “I’ve got a great deal—out of what I’ve been doing for every one. Not that it’s been much. I merely mean that, whatever it’s been, it’s brought me in far more than I’ve ever given out.” The swing of the boat was so abrupt as almost to make her heel over. Up and down the deck such passengers as were clinging to nothing were flung this way and that, with some laughing and a few involuntary cries. Miss Barry having braced me in a corner of the alcove because of my game leg, I kept my footing steadily, but the girl herself was thrown square into my arms. Not more than a second later another Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! warned us that another shell was on the way; but before we had time to be afraid a soft P-ff! told us that this, too, had struck the water. The waterspout, this time on the starboard side, not only spattered us with spray, but made it clear that only the sharp shifting of the course had saved us from a hole in our bow. That within the next few minutes our enemy would get us somewhere was a little more than probable. Then from every cluster of heads came the cry, “Oh, look!” There she was—a blue-gray streak, only a little darker than the blue-gray waters. The change in our course revealed her as she lay on the surface to shell us, since she was too far away to send us a torpedo. We forgot everything—Regina Barry and I forgot each other—to gaze. My arms relaxed their hold on the girl because there was no longer a mind to direct them; the girl took command of herself because it was only thus that she could observe the most baleful and fascinating monster in the world.