Watching her, he wondered idly if there were really worlds to discover in Emily. It might be interesting to--find out--. "Shall you miss me?" he asked. "Of course. And now if you'll see that the back shutters are barred, we'll be ready to go." Thus she checked his small attempt at sentiment, and on the way home they talked about Jean. "If Derry goes, you and she must live together in my house. Let that be understood. I'd rather have her with you than with anyone else in the whole wide world." Thus again the sacred charge, but this time not as a favor, but in lordly fashion, as one who claims a right. Jean and Derry were having tea at the club, but could not be reached by phone. "They had probably motored out into the country," Emily decided. "We'll have to do things before they come." The things that she did were stupendous. She had a florist up in two hours--and the rose-colored drawing room was rosier than ever, and as fragrant as a garden. She telephoned the clergyman--"At ten o'clock tomorrow." She telephoned the caterer--"A wedding breakfast--" She telephoned the dressmaker--"Miss McKenzie's gown--" She telephoned Margaret and Marion Gray--. "Is there anyone else?" she asked the Doctor. "I suppose we really ought to tell the General." "Certainly not." "But Bronson--? Derry will want him." "If he can keep a secret--yes." Jean and Derry, arriving after dark, were swept into a scene of excitement. Florists on the stairs! A frenzied dressmaker waiting with Jean's wedding gown! Maids with mops and men with vacuums! Julia and the cook helping at loose ends and dinner late! What did it all mean? "It means," said the Doctor, "that you are going to be married, my dear, at ten o'clock in the morning." "But why, Daddy--" fear showed in her eyes-- "Ask Emily." "Is he--going away,--Emily?" "Yes, dear." "But he mustn't. Derry, do you hear? He is going to France--and he mustn't--" Derry took her trembling hands in his firm clasp. "He must go, you know that, dearest." His touch steadied her. He leaned down to her and sang:-- "Jeanne D'Arc, Jeanne D'Arc-- Jeanne D'Arc, la victoire est pour vous." Her head went up. The color came back to her cheeks. "Of course," she said, and put away childish things that she might measure up to the stature of her lover's faith in her. And it was Jean, the Woman, who talked long that night with her father before he went to France. CHAPTER XXI DERRY'S WIFE It snowed hard the next morning. The General, waking, found the day nurse in charge. Bronson came in to get him ready for his breakfast. There was about the old man an air of suppressed excitement. He hurried a little in his preparations for the General's bath. But everything was done with exactness, and it was not until the General was shaved and sitting up in his gorgeous mandarin robe that Bronson said, "I'd like to go out for an hour or two this morning, if you can spare me, sir--"