This, I afterward learned, had been a weighty conference, resulting in the conclusion that I must have complete rest and diversion. But as my more recent letters home had expressed a determination to rush headlong into business--as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy nerves, no doubt--and since the conferees possessed an intimate knowledge of the mulish streak that coursed through my blood, their plans were laid behind my back with the greatest secrecy. Therefore, when entering the library this last night in December and hurrying to my mother's arms, I had no suspicion that I was being drawn into a very agreeable trap, gilded by my father's abundant generosity. We sat late after dinner. Somewhere in the hall Bilkins hovered with glasses and tray to be on hand when the whistles began their screaming. In twenty years he had not omitted this New Year's Eve ceremony. "Your wound never troubles you?" my mother asked, her solicitation over a scratch I had received ten months before not disguising a light of pride that charmed me. "I've forgotten it, Mater. Never amounted to anything." "Still, you did leave some blood on French soil," Dad spoke up, for this conceit appealed to him. "Enough to grow an ugly rose, perhaps," I admitted. "I'll bet you grew pretty ones on the cheeks of those French girls," he chuckled. "Pretty ones don't grow any more, on cheeks or anywhere else," I doggedly replied. "Materialism's the keynote now--that's why I'm going back to work, at once." "Oh," the Mater laughed, "don't think of your father's stupid office, yet!" "There's nothing left to think of," I grumbled. "Isn't there?" he exclaimed. "What'd you say if Gates has the yacht in commission, and you take a run down to Miami----" "Or open the cottage, if you'd rather," she excitedly interrupted him. "I hadn't intended leaving New York this winter, but will chaperon a house party if you like!" "Fiddlesticks! Cruise, by all means," he spoke with good-natured emphasis. "Get another fellow, and go after adventures and romances and that kind of thing! Go after 'em hammer and tongs! By George, that's what I'd do if I were a boy, and had the chance!" They waited, rather expectantly. "Cruising's all right," I said, without enthusiasm. "But it's a waste of time to go after romance and adventure. They died with the war." "Ho!--they did, did they?" he laughed in mock derision. "What's become of your imagination--your vaporings? You used to be full of it!" And the Mater supported him by exclaiming: "Why, Jack Bronx! And I used to call you my Pantheist! Don't tell me your second sight for discovering the beautiful in things has failed you!" "It got put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured, remembering with bitterness some of the fellows who had been with me.