The girl beamed up at him. She never harbored a pique, and now she began to chat as gayly as usual, in seeming forgetfulness of yesterday. David, however, could not so lightly throw off the past. Recollections lingered to hamper his actions and retard his tongue. But he let his eyes rest upon Polly in gratification, laughing at her little pleasantries, and finally enjoying the present quite as if nothing in past or future could have any evil power for him. The parting was vastly different from that of the day before. After he had gone Polly ran upstairs humming a song. How glad she was that he had come! The days seemed long without David. Since they returned from college they had been much together, and now she missed him. The Randolphs were away, and Patricia and the rest could not quite fill the gap. The ladies of June Holiday Home always welcomed her with delight, and she called there occasionally; but their increased freedom of action carried them out-of-doors more than formerly, and she was apt not to find those at home whom she most wished to see. Then, too, the place had never seemed just the same since her beloved “Nita” had left it forever. She was returning, one afternoon, from a shopping excursion with Leonora, when she was overtaken by Russell Ely. He drove up to the curb, and threw open the door of his car. “Will you ride up the hill?” he asked. In a moment she was whirling along the shady avenue, arranging her bundles comfortably in her lap and listening to her companion’s bright talk. “This is a pleasant lift for me,” she said. “I have been round in the shops ever since luncheon, and I am tired.” “I shouldn’t have dared to ask you if that guardsman of yours were in town; but since the length of New England is between us I thought I might venture.” Polly laughed, and they talked on and on, until she noticed that they had not turned at the corner nearest home. “You don’t mind going a little farther, do you?” he asked. “I seldom get a glimpse of you nowadays. What do you say to running up to Castleboro Inn for some toast and tea? The air is just right for a drive.” But Polly refused, although the invitation became urgent; so the young man reluctantly left her at the hospital entrance. “What would David say?” raced through her head and would not stop. “What would David say? What would David say?” “He won’t know it!” Polly retorted. “And it’s all right if he should.” “What would David say? What would David say?” Polly went indoors and made herself ready for dinner. “What would David say? What would David say?” accompanied her upstairs and down, and even to the dining-room door. Once at the table in the presence of her father and mother, the teasing voice vanished. Yet it returned the minute she was alone, and kept up the vexing question until it was finally lost in sleep.