Was he his own master as long as he could commit such sentimental follies, as long as he could suspect that he had told Wandel the truth on the Vesle? This nostalgia must be the rebound from the war, of which he had heard so much, which made men weak, or lazy, or indifferent. He continued to stare in the glass, angry, amazed. He had to overcome this homesick feeling. He had to prepare himself for harder battles than he had ever fought. He had had plenty of warning of the selfishness that was creeping over the world like a black pestilence. Where was his own self-will that had carried him so far? He locked himself, as it were, in his apartment. He sat down and called on his will. With a systematic brutality he got himself in hand. He reviewed his aims: to make more money, to get Sylvia. He emerged at last, hard and uncompromising, ready for the selfish ones, and went down town. Blodgett greeted him with a cheer. "Miracles! For the first time since you got back you look yourself again." "I am," George answered, "all but the limp. That will go some day maybe." He wanted it to go. He desired enormously to rid himself of the last reminder of his service. Lambert was definitely caught by the marble temple, but Goodhue and he would stay together, more or less tied to Blodgett, to accept the opportunities George foresaw for dragging money by sharp reasoning from the reconstruction period. He applied himself to exchange. From their position they could run wild in the stock market at little risk, but there were big things to be made out of exchange, about which the cleverest men didn't seem to know anything worth a penny in any currency. Everyone noticed his recovery, and everyone congratulated him except Bailly. When George went down to Betty's wedding the long tutor met him at the station, crying out querulously: "What's happened to you?" George laughed. "Got over the war reaction, I guess." "What the deuce did you go to war for at all then?" Bailly asked. "Haven't found that out myself yet," George answered, "but I know I wouldn't go to another, even if they'd have me." He grimaced at his injured foot. "And they're going to give you some kind of a medal!" Bailly cried. "I didn't ask for it," George said, "but I daresay a lot of people, you among them, went down to Washington and did." Bailly was a trifle uncomfortable. "See here," George said. "I don't want your old medal, and I don't intend to be scolded about it. I suppose I've got to rush right out to the Alstons." "Let's stop at the club," Bailly proposed. "People want to see you. We'll fight the war over with the veterans." "Damn the war!" George said. Mrs. Bailly, when he paused for a moment at the house in Dickinson Street, attacked him, and quite innocently, from a different direction. "It was the wish of my life, George, that you should have Betty, and you might have had. I can't help feeling that." "You're prejudiced," George laughed.