His voice sounded dull and heavy. Three abreast they moved across the platform, stood a few seconds in an elevator, passed out over a tiled floor and between the high fluted columns of the main entrance, to a street where pools of water glistened, where the wet asphalt shone black, and the air was full of rain lines driving before a southeast gale. Norquay senior guided him through scurrying people bent under umbrellas. "Here's the motor," he said. "All right. Got my wind back now," Rod smiled. "Been sick?" his father inquired solicitously. "No. Just temporary let-down after being more or less keyed up. You'll see lots of fellows coming home like that, soon. Something lets go now and then." He lay back on the upholstering between them, happy to feel Mary's hand pressed warmly close in his. In a few minutes the machine turned in a short, curved driveway, stopped under a portico. Norquay senior kept his seat. "I'll see you to-morrow, Rod," he said. "Good night. Pleasant dreams to both of you." The house was strange to Rod. He knew, of course, the street and number, but nothing more of the place where Mary had made her home for more than two years. He followed her into a living room where a fireplace glowed cheerfully, a simple, comfortable room. And they stood in the middle of it for a few seconds with their arms about each other, careless of their damp clothes, of Mary's hat tilted askew, of all but the fact that they were together after being long apart. "Did you miss me?" "Are you glad to be home?" Needless questions. Fond and foolish questions. They laughed and stood apart, threw off their heavy coats. "Kid's asleep, of course," Rod said. "Yes. Come, look." She drew him through a short passage into a bedroom. A small tousled brown head rested on a pillow. One hand clutched a dilapidated woolly dog with luminous glass eyes, the other was thrown straight out on the white counterpane, the chubby fingers relaxed. "How the little beggar has grown," Rod whispered. "He looks like you, Mary." "Everybody says he's a perfect Norquay," she replied demurely. "So there you are." "We've been very lucky," Rod said quietly. "If I'd known the situation was so critical at sea, I shouldn't have let you come home when you did. The place you had in Chelsea--I went out to see it before I left--for old times' sake. I hadn't been there since you came home. There's a new house--at least, the upper story's all new. I made inquiries. A Gotha dropped high explosives on it about six weeks after you left." Mary shuddered. "Well, it's over," she murmured. "I cried all Armistice night--after the joy-whoopings. Silly thing for me to do. Everybody here went mad. Where were you?" "Mopping up," he said grimly. "We didn't believe it at first. Then we sat down and smoked cigarettes and drank tea, and wondered how soon we could get home. God damn the war--and the war-makers!" His voice choked with passion.