“Well, I’ll be damned,” declared the Captain, after he had gone. “This beats anything I ever heard of.... And you and I have been on some funny parties together ... some very funny parties....” And he burst into laughter that kept up so long I had to laugh, too, for after all the memory of such things as that strip poker game, and the Madame Gedouin affair were enough to make anyone laugh. “No wonder the Madame complained about your being so cold to her!” exclaimed my friend. “Oh—oh—oh—this is rich!” “Well, what do you intend to do about it?” I asked. He sobered up long enough to say, “Apparently I’ve demonstrated what I will do, haven’t I?” We just sat there and looked at each other then. He couldn’t seem to get used to me as a girl and I couldn’t seem to feel like a girl, except that I felt happy and safe for the first time in months. Just before Ben arrived, he came over as if he would take me in his arms, but he stopped and said, very frankly, “Gosh, I can’t even kiss you—it doesn’t seem right at all.” “You’d better not be kissing me,” I told him. “You’d forget yourself sometime and then Ben would be sure we were crazy. Ben doesn’t know anything about the secret except that my twin brother is in the army under an assumed name.” “Don’t worry about that ten-minute egg,” he told me. “We’ll negotiate some way of keeping you safe and worryless.... I’ll try to get a transfer. Get you in with me!” “Well—I don’t know,” I admitted doubtfully. “It would be lots of fun, but ... well, I don’t know.” Then Ben arrived and we started out on a party that turned out to be loads of fun because the Captain could not make love to any of the women and none of the women could make love to me—because whenever anyone tried it, he just burst out laughing so hard that I had to laugh, too. We were just like a couple of kids, and Ben thought we were crazy. Maybe we were, but the Captain seemed to be very happy. And I’m damned sure I was! —7— Although the Captain hadn’t had any chance to make love to me, we became better acquainted and everything was going along smoothly. He didn’t pay any attention to the pretty mam’selles any more and he didn’t drink but only a little now and then, and Ben said, “Damfidont believe you guys is what they calls satiated! Grog shops and ladies parlors don’t appeal to ya atall any more.... Well, it takes a strong he-man to stand the gaff in this burg—which bein’ so, I’ll see ya later!” We were glad to be alone for a while—and if another Intelligence man hadn’t come in, I think we both might have forgotten that I was in a man’s uniform.... Oh, I loved that man so terribly much: so much it almost hurt sometimes! He was a wild man! He wanted us to be married just as soon as possible!