"We met--I met him--in Paris, the very first week. He had gone over there in the beginning as a correspondent. Then he had come all the way back to America and had enlisted for service. He hated it, as every intelligent man did. But he had to do it, he said. We--liked each other right away. I'd never met a man like that before. I didn't know there were any. Oh, I suppose I did know; but they had never come within my range. He had only a second-lieutenancy. There was nothing of the commander about him. He always said so. He used to say he had never learned to 'snap into it' properly. You know what I mean? He was thirty-seven. Winnie Steppler introduced us. She had known him in his Chicago cub reporter days. He went to New York, later. Well, that first week, when I was waiting to be sent out, he and Winnie and I--she met me in Paris, you know, when I came--went everywhere together and it was glorious. I can't tell you. Paris was being shelled but it refused to be terrorised. The streets and the parks and the restaurants were packed. You've no idea what it was, going about with him. He was like a boy about things--simple things, I mean--a print in a window, or a sauce in a restaurant, or a sunset on the Bois. We used to laugh at nothing--foolish, wonderful, private jokes like those families have that are funny to no one outside the family. The only other person I'd ever known like that was a boy at school when I went to Armour. I haven't seen him since I was eighteen, and he's an important person now. But he had that same quality. They call it a sense of humour, I suppose, but it's more than that. It's the most delightful thing in the world, and if you have it you don't need anything else.... Four months later he was wounded. Not badly. He was in the hospital for six weeks. In that time I didn't see him. Then he went back into it but he wasn't fit. We used to write regularly. I don't know how I can make you understand how things were--things----" Charley looked up at her. "I know what you mean. The--the state of mind that people got into over there--nice people--nice girls. Is that what you mean?" "Yes. Do you know?" "Well, I can imagine----"