"I thought you might walk back to—to the hotel with me." I took out my watch, though unable to read the time even when I looked at it. "I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid—" "Oh no, you’re not." There was a repetition of the catch in the tone that suggested a sob. "Billy, aren’t we—aren’t we going to be friends?" I couldn’t soften toward her. I felt no springs of forgiveness. "Why should you want to be friends with me?" "Because I can’t help it, for one thing," she cried; "and for another—" Turning away wearily she began to move toward the door. "Of course if you don’t want to, I can’t urge it, and so must learn to get along by myself." Something in the last phrase prompted me to say: "Is there anything specially wrong?" "No; only everything specially wrong. If you had come back to the hotel with me I could have told you." "Can’t you tell me now? Is it about—about Stroud?" "Oh no, Billy. Can’t you forget about that? I have. He’s dropped out of my existence. That was all a mistake, like the other things." "What other things?" "All the other things." She pointed to the big word "PEACE" staring at us from a chair to which I had thrown the newspaper. "Look at that. Doesn’t it make all the last five years seem unreal, like a nightmare after you’ve got up? Well, that’s the way I feel now ... about ... about—" "About me?" "Of course. I never should have thought it at all, only that Wolf and Dick Stroud, and even the military authorities— But at heart I _didn’t_ believe them—" "Do you mean that—?" She nodded without waiting for me to finish the question. "But I want it very plainly, Vio." "I’ll tell you as plainly as you like, Billy, but—but not now. I’m too worried." "But what about? Is it—?" "Oh, everything!" she burst out, desperately. "Money for one thing. Didn’t you see how shabby the house was, and run down?" The sobs began to come freely now, and without restraint. "And—and Lulu Averill has a little boy, a perfect darling, and our little Bobby—" "I’ll go back with you to the hotel," I said, quietly, "only, don’t—don’t cry here, with people coming in and out." She dried her eyes, drew down her veil, and took her sunshade from a corner. Picking up the paper she had brought, I folded it and slipped it into my pocket. I began to wonder if it might not prove a souvenir. On the way to the main exit we passed through a corridor lined with cases of old silver. "Do you think your boys would like a day with those things?" she asked, with the slight convulsion of her throat that a child has after tears. "I’m sure they would." "I could—I could take them, some day, when you didn’t want to go, if you’d let me. It’s one of the few things I know something about." "I’m afraid it would bore you." She paused for just an instant. "Bore me? Billy, nothing will ever bore me again so long as you—you let me—" As she could say no more we resumed our walk.