"Indeed, I am not," said the president, smiling. "You are not a fool--I can see that--and you can think out these things for yourself. You are not accountable to me, anyway. I have no authority to find fault with you. If you think your part in this terrible time is to go the limit in fancy clothes, theaters, and late suppers with men of questionable character--that is for you to decide. I believe in the honor system. You are certainly setting a bad example--but you have that privilege. You cannot be sent to jail for it. The money you draw is hard-earned money--it is certainly sweated labor which our gallant men perform for the miserable little sum that is paid them. It is yours to do with as you like. I had hoped that more of you young women would have come to help us in our work in the Red Cross and other places. We need your youth, your enthusiasm, your prettiness, for we are sorely pressed with many cares and troubles, and we seem to be old sometimes. But you are quite right in saying that it is your own business how you spend the money!" After Mrs. Kent had gone, the younger woman sat looking around her flat with a queer feeling of discontent. A half-eaten box of chocolates was on the table and a new silk sweater coat lay across the lounge. In the tiny kitchenette a tap dripped with weary insistence, and unwashed dishes filled the sink. She got up suddenly and began to wash the dishes, and did not stop until every corner of her apartment was clean and tidy. "I am getting dippy," she said as she looked at herself in the mirror in the buffet; "I've got to get out--this quiet life gets me. I'll go down to the _dansant_ this afternoon--no use--I can't stand being alone." She put on her white suit, and dabbing rouge on her cheeks and penciling her eyes, she went forth into the sunshiny streets. She stopped to look at a display of sport suits in a window, also to see her own reflection in a mirror placed for the purpose among the suits. Suddenly a voice sounded at her elbow: "Some kid, eh? Looking good enough to eat!" She turned around and met the admiring gaze of Sergeant Edward Loftus Brown, recruiting sergeant of the 19-th, with whom she had been to the theater a few nights before. She welcomed him effusively. "Come on and have something to eat," he said. "I got three recruits to-day--so I am going to proclaim a half-holiday." They sat at a table in an alcove and gayly discussed the people who passed by. The President of the Red Cross came in, and at a table across the room hastily drank a cup of tea and went out again. "She came to see me to-day," said Mrs. Tweed, "and gave me to understand that they were not any too well pleased with me--I am too gay for a soldier's wife! And they do not approve of you."