They left Madeleine at the Metro and walked to their offices. Neither boy referred to the situation; Bert, because he saw no reason for it; Kendall, because he dared not. Strangely, it was not Madeleine and Bert that troubled him; it was himself. He was not accustomed to studying himself, but he was doing so now. He had rather fancied himself a man capable of thought and understanding, a man who could look at the world and comprehend it. He had regarded himself as wise in his generation, not blatantly so, but with a certainty born of inherited dogmas and local dogmas. For the first time he saw dimly that one may understand the world from the Detroit point of view and be utterly at a loss in New York; that he may understand life from the American point of view and be grossly ignorant of the French. He even asked himself this question: “Is one who lives up to his code of ethics, his moral conceptions, good and moral, even if those ethics and conceptions are utterly at variance with some other code of behavior?” Could it be that a thing abominable in America because America’s code was set against it could be perfectly proper in Persia because Persia’s code permitted it? That there was an abstract _good_ he believed, and that there was an abstract _evil_. But could a definite act be made universally evil by legislation or by the custom of only a part of the world? It was deeper reasoning than he had ever essayed before, and he limped sadly as he traveled toward no conclusion at all. The result was multiplied bewilderment.... One conclusion he reached: If Madeleine had been an American girl he would have been shocked, outraged.... This led him to think of Maude Knox, and suddenly he wanted to see her, to talk to her, to be with her because she was American as he was American. He wanted to get his feet on solid earth and to tread accustomed paths for a while. He determined he would see her. At noon he told Bert he would not be at home for dinner, and then at six o’clock he hurried to the Hôtel Wagram and telephoned Miss Knox’s room. She was in, and would be delighted to dine with him if he would wait twenty minutes. He sat down in the spacious lobby and smoked and waited. She came down the stairs very trim and American and pleasing to the eye. He noted the little swagger—the rather charming swagger—to her walk. It was accentuated by the fact that she carried her hands in the side pockets of her coat. She was not in uniform; had left it off for the evening as the women in the various services love to do. He arose and walked to the stairway to meet her, and they shook hands in the frank American way. “Well?” she said, with a humorous twinkle in her eye. “I got to wanting to see you this morning,” he said, “and it grew. So I just came along and took a chance.” “To-morrow would be too late. I’ve got a job with a combat division and I’m going out to-morrow. Maybe I’ll get close to the front.”