So Magnus felt that day. The more people came, the more he was crowded almost from standing-room, the wider grew the heart distance between himself and the bright world about him. Gay girls, pretty girls, thronged the seats and the walk; Magnus only felt that none of them was Cherry, and every older woman that came by, decked in feathers and flowers and laces, sent his thoughts off with such a rush to his own dear mother, in her simplest go-to-meeting bonnet, that it was all the boy could do to stand there and give no sign. And at even the officers he looked askance, wondering which of them might possibly be "Tacs." "Poor fellow!" said some of the kind hearts amid the finery. "He looks pretty homesick." "Such a handsome boy, too. You must take him out in the German, Floy." "Oh, _he_ can't go to the German," said Miss Floy, who had reached the mature age of thirteen. "None of the plebs can. And he's only a candidate, yet. Besides, I don't care much for any man that doesn't wear chevrons." And the mother laughed and repeated the smart saying to her next neighbour. If there arose in the mind of Charlemagne Kindred an instant resolve to wear chevrons, at whatever cost, you must not think hardly of him. These pretty, airy creatures wield a powerful sceptre and their silken cords are strong. How the people crowded in! They sat where they could, and stood where they shouldn't. They grouped themselves round the old trees, and made a strong background to the iron seats. Officers, civilians, matrons, girls--and candidates. Little children dropped down on the green edge of the parade ground, and at last grown-up and hard-pushed people sat there, too. Then an imposing police sergeant came along, waving them off with his black wand. And the people jumped up, growling and frowning, and, as soon as they saw his back, dropped down again. As for Magnus, the whole thing seemed to wind him up in tightening cords of tension. He was outside now, but to-morrow at this time he would be in; caught and bound and caged behind a cordon of regulations. Assigned a place, turned over to duties which he could in no wise quit or change. Not to see home again for two long years. Should he do it? Or should he, in these last hours of freedom, set himself free for good? Take the first train for the West, and leave all his great prospects behind him, and the chevrons and shoulder-straps to someone else? Thoughts came and went, surged and rolled back; and the whistle of each train, as it flew by, just made the confusion deeper. "Come!" they seemed to say. "Come-m-me-me!"