That very first night, night when she had been so shy, he had felt in her that which he called the real thing, which he knew for the great thing, which had been, for him, the thing unattainable. And with all her timidity, aloofness, elusiveness, he had felt an inexplicable nearness to her.

He had found out something about the conditions girls had to meet. His face hardened, then tightened with pain in the thought of those being the conditions Ann was meeting. He did not believe those conditions would go on many days longer if every man had to see them in relation to some one he cared for. "The poor ye have always with you" might then prove less authoritative--less satisfying--as the final word.

And the other conditions--things his sort stood for--Darrett--the whole story--He had come to loathe the words chivalry and honor and all the rest of the empty terms that resounded so glibly against false standards.

Something was wrong with the world and he could not see that improving a rifle was going to go very far toward setting it right.

And there was springing up within him, even in his loneliness and gloom, a passion to be doing something that would help set it right.

An older officer with whom he had been talking that day had spoken lovingly of his father, under whom he had served; spoken of his hardihood and integrity, his manliness and soldierliness. As he thought of it now it seemed to him that just because he _was_ his father's son--had in him the blood of the soldier--he should help fight the real battles of the day--the long stern battles of peace.

His father had served, faithfully and well. He, too, would like to serve.

But yesterday's needs were not to-day's needs, nor were the methods of yesterday desirable, even possible, for to-day. What could be farther from serving one's own day than rendering to it the dead forms of what had been the real service to a day gone by?

There came a curious thought that to give up the things of war might be the only way to save the things that war had left him. That perhaps he could only transmit his heritage by recasting the form of giving.

Looking out across the miles of the city's roofs, hearing the rumble of the city as it came faintly up to him, watching the people hurrying to and fro, there was something puerile in the argument that men any longer needed war to fill their lives, must have the war fear to keep them from softness and degeneration. Thinking of the problems of that very city, it seemed men need not worry greatly about having nothing to fight for, no stimulus to manhood.

Men and women! Those men and women passing back and forth and all the millions of their kind, they were what counted. The things that mattered to them were the things that mattered. Their needs the things to fight for.

So he reflected and drifted, brushing now this, now that, in thought and fancy.

Weary--lonely--he dreamed a dream, dream such as the weary and the lonely have dreamed before, will dream again. Too utterly alone, he dreamed he was not alone. Heart-hungry, he dreamed of love. He dreamed of Ann. He had dreamed of her before, would dream of her again. Dream of her, if for nothing else, because he knew she had dreamed of love; because she made him know that it was there, because, unreasoningly, she made him hope.

Her face that night at the dance--that night in the boat, when they had talked almost not at all, had seemed to feel no need for talking--things remembered blended with things desired until it seemed he could feel her hair brush his face, feel her breath upon his cheek, her arms about his neck--vivid as if given by memories instead of wooed from dreams.

But the benign dream became torturing vision--vision of Ann with hands held out to him--going down--her wonderful eyes fearful with terror.

It was that which dreaming held for him.

And it seemed that he--he and his kind--all of those who stood for the things not real were the thing beating Ann down.

Dreams gone and vision mercifully falling away there came a yearning, just a simple human yearning, to know where she was. He felt he could bear anything if only he knew that she was safe.

The telephone rang. He supposed it was some of his friends--something about the hour for dining.

He would not answer. Could not. Too sick of it all--too sore.

But it kept ringing, and, habit in the ascendency, he took down the receiver.

It was not a man's voice. It was a woman's. A faint voice--he could scarcely catch it.

And could with difficulty reply. He did not know the voice, it was too faint, too far-away, but a suggestion in it made his own voice and hand unsteady as he said: "Yes? What is it?"

"Is this--Captain Jones?"

The voice was stronger, clearer. His hand grew more unsteady.

"Yes," he replied in the best voice he could muster. "Yes--this is Captain Jones. Who is it, please?"

There was a silence.

"Tell me, please," he managed to say. "Is it--?"

The voice came faintly back, "Why it's--Ann."

The keenest joy he had ever known swept through him. To be followed by the most piercing fear. The voice was so faint--so unreal--what if it were to die away and he would have no way to get it back!

It seemed he could not hold it. For an instant he was crazed with the sense of powerlessness. He felt it must even then be slipping back into the abyss from which it had emerged.

Then he fought. Got himself under command; sent his own voice full and strong over the wire as if to give life to the voice it seemed must fade away.

"Ann," he said firmly, authoritatively, "listen to me. No matter what happens--no matter what's the matter--I've got something you must hear.

If we're cut off, call up again. Will you do that? Are you listening?"

"Yes," came Ann's voice, more sure.

"I've got to see you. You hear what I say? It's about Katie. You care a little something for Katie, don't you, Ann?"

It was a sob rather than a voice came back to him.

"Then tell me where I can find you."

She hesitated.

"Tell me where you're living--or where I can find you. Now tell me the truth, Ann. If you knew the condition Katie was in--"

She gave him an address on a street he did not know.

"Would you rather I came there? Or rather I meet you down town? Just as you say. Only I _must_ see you tonight."

"I--I can't come down town. I'm sick."

His hand on the receiver tightened. His voice, which had been almost harsh in its dominance, was different as he said: "Then I'll come there--right away."

There was no reply, but he felt she was still there. "And, Ann," he said, very low, and far from harshly, "I want to see you, too."

There was a little sob in which he faintly got "Good-bye."

He sank to a chair. His face was buried in his hands. It was several minutes before he moved.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Children seemed to spring up from the sidewalk and descend from the roofs as his cab, after a long trip through crowded streets with which three months before he would have been totally unfamiliar, stopped at the number Ann had given. All the way over he had been seeing children: dirty children, pale-faced children, children munching at things and children looking as though they had never had anything to munch at--children playing and children crying--it seemed the children's part of town. The men and women of tomorrow were growing up in a part of the city too loathsome for the civilized man and woman of today to set foot in. He was too filled with thought of Ann--the horror of its being where she lived--to let the bigger thought of it brush him more than fleetingly, but it did occur to him that there was still a frontier--and that the men who could bring about smokeless cities--and odorless ones--would be greater public servants than the men who had achieved smokeless powder.

Riding through that part of town it would scarcely suggest itself to any one that what the country needed was more battleships.