... and perhaps you might like to know, she read, that the fellow you were so curious about a while ago, the Forge fellow, that I might have told you about all along if I’d only known you were interested in him, ... called off to see me on his way through to San Francisco last week ... he brought me a little packet of love letters we wrote to each other when we were school-kids, years ago ... Oh, Madge, dear, you’re the dearest friend I ever had, I’ve got to tell you! ... after he had gone they broke me all up, Madge! After all, they meant so much! ... I told you a story, Madge, when I said he didn’t come out of that jail scrape clean. He did come out of it clean. He’s an awful provincial, Madge, ... he’d shock you to death in lots of ways ... his etiquette is impossible ... but I guess he never had a chance, Madge, like you and me. I’m sorry I treated him so. I said a lot of things which hurt him terribly. But he’s gone now and I don’t know where he is, to let him know I’m sorry ... he lost both his child and his wife ... there’s no woman in his life ... but there’s something hickory about him, Madge, deep down under his awful manners ... oh, Madge! ... I wish he didn’t come from a small town ... I wish he wasn’t a small-town fellow ... I wish I wasn’t so world-wise ... I’d like to have him love me greatly, a man like him ... and forget ... everything ... in his great, strong tenderness ... Madelaine read the letter, in its coarse, underscored penmanship, to the end. It was two o’clock when she laid down on her bed and tried to get a few hours’ sleep before morning. Next day the marines went into action at Château-Thierry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII INTERLUDE I