"I know it," he gave my arm a squeeze--for Tommy possessed that characteristic making for a community of mind and spirit that did not wait for explanations. "I know it," he repeated, "but you _look_ a whole lot better--really like your old self! Now, what's the trouble? If you're worrying about the ruins we created back there, cut it out! I'm not bothered over the one or two I might have got! Fact is, nobody knows which of us hit which, anyway. So what is it? I'm not asking, merely insisting!" So I told him pretty much everything, as one chum can to another. "You mean she may listen to the little gezabo and go back?" he asked. "I mean just that. She will if she thinks it has a bigger claim on her. I know how square she is!" "Besides being square," he said thoughtfully, "there's also something in the make-up of woman that I've never understood: her apparent hankering after sacrifice. When it comes to a show-down between heart and conscience, she'll follow the conscience ten to one--if she's straight. Look at it," he swept his arm toward the prairie, as if innumerable instances were in sight of us. "See the sweet-faced old ladies who never wrote 'Mrs.' before their names--not that they've missed anything, God knows, but just look at 'em! All because some over-finicky parent didn't approve, no doubt! And see the heart starvation stamped on 'daughter's' face, because 'father' was nearly bankrupt and she _did_ write 'Mrs.' to save him! Taking them in retrospect, it's a question if the thing they called sacrifice wasn't plain damn foolishness. Why, hell, Jack, d'you mean to say that the professor and his musty European customs--oh, I can't be profane enough!--the English language is trifling and inadequate! But I'm going to take a hand in this courtship, myself!" "For a gregarious animal, Tommy, you're something of a wonder," I began to laugh, because it was like myrrh and frankincense blown upon my doubts and fears to hear him talk. We went quietly on after this. Our boots made no noise in the soft earth, and thus silently we approached the fort; then halted. For on the farther side, hidden by the walls, a man was speaking in tones of earnestness, yet at that very instant a voice interrupted him. "I wish you wouldn't persist in talking now," it said irritably, "I'm too unhappy over the lives which most have been lost, and----" "But Your Serenity must realize that lives are nothing. The new destiny that----" "Oh, I know what you'd say," the voice cried. "But don't give me any more arguments, for Heaven's sake! They're utterly useless and, besides, you might convince me!" Softly we tiptoed away and, when at a safe distance I stopped to rub my arm where Tommy's fingers had been digging into it, he whispered: "That didn't sound sacrificy, did it?" "The old fellow hasn't struck his pace, yet," I answered doubtfully.