Part 3 (1/2)

”Well, I've heard Captain Thesel was to blame for--for what was said about you last summer when he came home.”

”And what was that, Lorna?” queried Lane, curiously puzzled at her, and darkly conscious of the ill omen that had preceded him home.

”You'll not hear it from me,” declared Lorna, spiritedly. ”But that _Croix de Guerre_ doesn't agree with it, I'll tell the world.”

A little frown puckered her smooth brow and there was a gleam in her eye.

”Seems to me I heard some of the kids talking last summer,” she mused, ponderingly. ”Vane Thesel was stuck on Mel Iden and Dot Dalrymple both before the war. Dot handed him a lemon. He's still trying to rush Dot, and the gossip is he'd go after Mel even now on the sly, if she'd stand for it.”

”Why on the sly?” inquired Lane. ”Before I left home Mel Iden was about the prettiest and most popular girl in Middleville. Her people were poor, and ordinary, perhaps, but she was the equal of any one.”

”Thesel couldn't rush Mel now and get away with it, unless on the q-t,” replied Lorna. ”Haven't you heard about Mel?”

”No, you see the fact is, my few correspondents rather neglected to send me news,” said Lane.

The significance of this was lost upon his sister. She giggled. ”Hot dog! You've got some kicks coming, I'll say!”

”Is that so,” returned Lane, with irritation. ”A few more or less won't matter.... Lorna, do you know Helen Wrapp?”

”That red-headed dame!” burst out Lorna, with heat. ”I should smile I do. She's one who doesn't shake a s.h.i.+mmy on tea, believe me.”

Lane was somewhat at a loss to understand his sister's intimation, but as it was vulgarly inimical, and seemed to hold some subtle personal scorn or jealousy, he shrank from questioning her. This talk with his sister was the most unreal happening he had ever experienced. He could not adjust himself to its verity.

”Helen Wrapp is nutty about d.i.c.k Swann,” went on Lorna. ”She drives down to the office after----”

”Lorna, do you know Helen and I are engaged?” interrupted Lane.

”Hot dog!” was that young lady's exposition of utter amaze. She stared at her brother.

”We were engaged,” continued Lane. ”She wore my ring. When I enlisted she wanted me to marry her before I left. But I wouldn't do that.”

Lorna promptly recovered from her amaze. ”Well, it's a d.a.m.n lucky thing you didn't take her up on that marriage stuff.”

There was a glint of dark youthful pa.s.sion in Lorna's face. Lane felt rise in him a desire to bid her sharply to omit slang and profanity from the conversation. But the desire faded before his bewilderment.

All had suffered change. What had he come home to? There was no clear answer. But whatever it was, he felt it to be enormous and staggering.

And he meant to find out. Weary as was his mind, it grasped peculiar significances and deep portents.

”Lorna, where do you work?” he began, s.h.i.+fting his interest.

”At Swann's,” she replied.

”In the office--at the foundry?” he asked.

”No. Mr. Swann's at the head of the leather works.”

”What do you do?”

”I type letters,” she answered, and rose to make him a little bow that held the movement and the suggestion of a dancer.

”You've learned stenography?” he asked, in surprise.