“Yes; and one evening when both of the girls were being just a little extra peacocky over their double wedding next October and letting me understand what a favor it was to me that I was to be double maid of honor, I just up and told ’em I didn’t know whether I could be as I had an important engagement to be married myself.” “Lovely! Gorgeous!” “They jumped at the English letters. So I told them that I thought I might as well own up about the affair; how I’d met him on my vacation in Canada and helped him try out horses for the British Government, which had sent him over for that purpose when he was wounded, and we had corresponded ever since. It was awfully well done, if I do say it as shouldn’t.” “Let me get this right,” pleaded Gloria. “You made him all up yourself, just on the basis of those war-office letters?” “N-no. That’s just the trouble.” “You _didn’t_ make him up?” “N-n-not entirely.” “For Heaven’s sake, do be more explicit!” “I’m t-t-trying to,” said Darcy brokenly. “I got him out of a book.” “Then he’s imaginary.” “I’m afraid he’s real. Awfully real.” “Darcy Cole; _what_ book did you get him out of?” “Burke’s Peerage.” With one headlong plunge Gloria projected herself upon the couch where she wallowed ecstatically among the pillows. “Oh, Darcy! Darcy!” she gasped when she could achieve coherent speech. “For this I shall love you forever. I’ll do more. I’ll adopt you. I’ll endow you. I’ll—I’ll canonize you. What’s his name?” “Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England,” recited the girl formally. Dissociating herself from a convulsed silk coverlet, Gloria straightened up. “Sir Montrose Veyze,” she repeated thoughtfully and relishingly. “Why that particular and titled gentleman?” “I got to the V’s before I found any one that seemed to fill the bill.” “What special qualification commended him to your favorable consideration, Miss Cole?” “Well, he’s unmarried.” “That’s important.” “And he’s far away. I came across that in an English magazine.” “How far?” “Way out in the East somewhere where one of the fifty-seven varieties of left-over wars is still going on.” “So far, so good. What are you going to do with him when he comes back?” “If I only knew!” was the miserable rejoinder. “Maybe he won’t come back. Maybe something will happen to him.” “It won’t. He’ll bear a charmed life, just to plague you,” retorted her friend with conviction. “You bloodthirsty little beast!” she added. “The worst I wish him,” said Darcy tearfully, “is an honorable military death.” “Oh! Is that all! You’d have to go into deep mourning.” “That’d be better than suicide. And I can’t see anything else for me to do if he lives through. I won’t confess to that Maud-cat! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!” “I don’t blame you. But when are you to be married?” “Uncertain. That’s the advantage of having a fiancé at war.”