"Daren, they tell me you're going to die," she returned, breathlessly. Her glance was brooding, dark, pregnant with purple fire. "Bessy, don't believe all you hear. I'm not--not so far gone yet." "They say you're game, too." "I hope so, Bessy." "Oh, you make me think. You must believe me a pill. I wanted you to--to fall for me hard.... That bunch of sapheads have spoiled me, I'll say. Daren, I'm sick of them. All they want to do is mush. I like tennis, riding, golf. I want to do things. But it's too hot, or this, or that. Yet they'll break their necks to carry a girl off to some roadhouse, and dance--dance till you're melted. Then they stop along the river to go bathing. I've been twice. You see, I have to sneak away, or lie to mother and say I've gone to Gail's or somewhere." "Bathing, at night?" queried Lane, curiously. "Sure thing. It's spiffy, in the dark." "Of course you took your bathing suits?" "Hot dog! That would be telling." Lane dropped his head and studied the dust at his feet. His heart beat thick and heavy. Through this girl the truth was going to be revealed to him. It seemed on the moment that he could not look into her eyes. She scattered his wits. He tried to erase from his mind every impression of her, so that he might begin anew to understand her. And the very first, succeeding this erasure, was a singular idea that she was the opposite of romantic. "Bessy, can you understand that it is hard for a soldier to talk of what has happened to him?" "I'll say I can," she replied. "You're sorry for me?" he went on, gently. "Sorry!... Give me a chance to prove what I am, Daren Lane." "Very well, then. I will. We'll make a fifty-fifty bargain. Do you regard a promise sacred?" "I think I do. Some of the girls quarrel with me because I get sore, and swear they're not square, as I try to be. I hate a liar and a quitter." "Come then--shake hands on our bargain." She seemed thrilled, excited. The clasp of her little hand showed force of character. She looked wonderingly up at him. Her appeal then was one of exquisite youth and beauty. Something of the baffling suggestion of an amorous expectation and response left her. This child would give what she received. "First, then, it's for me to know a lot about you," went on Lane. "Will you tell me?" "Sure. I'd trust you with anything," she replied, impulsively. "How long have you been going with boys?" "Oh, for two years, I guess. I had a passionate love affair when I was thirteen," she replied, with the nonchalance and sophistication of experience. It was impossible for Lane to take this latter remark for anything but the glib boldness of an erotic child. But he was not making any assurances to himself that he was right. Bessy Bell was fifteen years old, according to time. But she had the physical development of eighteen, and a mental range beyond his ken. The lawlessness unleashed by the war seemed embodied in this girl. "With an older boy?" queried Lane.