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June and July, while the rumors reached us faintly, of battle and terror overseas, Ailie’s eyes roved here and there about the country-club floor, seeking for something among the tall young officers. She attached several, choosing them with unfailing perspicacity – save in the case of Lieutenant Canby, whom she claimed to despise, but, nevertheless, gave dates to “because he was so sincere” – and we shared out her evenings among us all summer.

One day she broke all her dates – Bill Knowles had leave and was coming. We talked of the event with scientific impersonality – would he move her to a decision? Lieutenant Canby, on the contrary, wasn’t impersonal at all. He told her that if she married Knowles he was going to climb up six thousand feet in his aeroplane, shut off the motor and let go. He frightened her – I had to yield him my last date before Bill came.

On Saturday night she and Bill Knowles came to the country club. They were very handsome together and once more I felt envious and sad. As they danced out on the floor the three-piece orchestra was playing After You’ve Gone, in a poignant way that I can hear yet, as if each bar were trickling off a precious minute of that time. I knew then that I had grown to love Tarleton. It was a time of youth and war, and there was never so much love around.

When I danced with Ailie she suddenly suggested that we go outside to a car. She wanted to know why didn’t people cut in on her tonight? Did they think she was already married?

“Are you going to be?”

“I don’t know, Andy. Sometimes, when he treats me as if I were sacred, it thrills me.” Her voice was quiet and far away. “And then – ”

She laughed. Her body, so frail and tender, was touching mine, her face was turned up to me, and there, suddenly, with Bill Knowles ten yards off, I could have finally kissed her. Our lips just touched experimentally; then an aviation officer turned a corner of the veranda near us, peered into our darkness and hesitated.

“Ailie.”

“Yes.”

“You heard about this afternoon?”

“What?” She leaned forward, tenseness already in her voice.

“Horace Canby crashed. He was instantly killed.”

She got up slowly and stepped out of the car.

“You mean he was killed?” she said.

“Yes. They don’t know what the trouble was. His motor – ”

“Oh-h-h!” Her rasping whisper came through the hands suddenly covering her face. We watched her helplessly as she put her head on the side of the car, gagging dry tears. After a minute I went for Bill, who was searching anxiously about for her, and told him she wanted to go home.

I sat on the steps outside. I had disliked Canby, but his terrible, pointless death was more real to me then than the day’s toll of thousands in France. In a few minutes Ailie and Bill came out. When Ailie saw me she came over swiftly.