Under cover of the laugh he whispered in Ruth's ear, "Gee! But I'm glad you are all right again, sweetness. And your Geoffrey Annersley is some peach of a cousin, I'm telling you, though I'm confoundedly glad he decided he was married to somebody else and left the coast clear for Larry." He squeezed her hand again, a pressure which meant more than his words as Ruth knew and then he turned to Larry. The hands of the two brothers met and each looked into the other's face, for once unashamed of the emotion that mastered them. Characteristically Ted was the first to recover speech. "Larry, dear old chap, I wish I could tell you how happy I am that it has come out so ripping right for you and Ruth. You deserve all the luck and love in the world. I only wish mother and dad could be here now. Maybe they are. I believe they must know somehow. Dad seems awfully close to me lately especially since I've been in this war business." Then seeing Larry's face shadow he added, "And you mustn't worry about me, old man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever happens. You know yourself death isn't so much--not such a horrible calamity as we talk as if it were." "I know. But it is horribly hard to reconcile myself to your going. I can't seem to make up my mind to accept it especially as you needn't have gone." "Don't let that part bother you. The old U.S.A. will be in it herself before you know it and then I'd have gone anyway. Nothing would have kept me. What is the odds? I am glad to be getting in on the front row myself. I am going to be all right I tell you. Going to have a bully time and when we have the Germans jolly well licked I'm coming home and find me as pretty a wife as Ruth if there is one to be found in America and marry her quick as lightning." Larry smiled at that. It was so like Ted it was good to hear. And irrationally enough he found himself more than a little reassured and comforted because the other lad declared he was going to be all right and have a bully time and come back safe when the job was done. "And I say, Larry." Ted's voice was soberer now. "I have always wanted to tell you how I appreciated your standing by me so magnificently in that horrible mess of mine. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had felt like throwing me over for life after my being such a tarnation idiot and disgracing the family like that. I'll never forget how white you and Uncle Phil both were about it every way and maybe you won't believe it but there'll never be anything like that again. There are some things I'm through with--at least if I'm not I'm even more of a fool than I think I am."