ONE afternoon Nona went to Barbara’s bedroom, adjoining her own, and knocked.

She had recently decided that she did not intend to allow Barbara to separate herself from her old friendships, if it were possible to prevent it. For, if Barbara were doing something of which she could not altogether approve, then all the more reason why she should hold to her affection in order to influence her should trouble come.

So, as Mildred Thornton was at present in charge of the hospital, Eugenia having gone away on one of the fruitless trips she made now and then in order to seek news of her husband, Nona asked that she and Barbara be given their two hours for recreation at the same time. Then she had managed an engagement with Barbara for a late afternoon walk.

[105]Of course Nona appreciated how difficult it often is to revive an old affection which time and circumstances have altered. Certainly Barbara must have changed since her marriage, grown more spoiled and self-centered. One could scarcely imagine the old Barbara behaving as this new one was doing. Nevertheless, Nona did not intend the separation between the four original Red Cross girls to continue indefinitely.

[105]

Since the evening of her own and Barbara’s arrival at the hospital and their reunion with Eugenia and Mildred, there had been nothing like the intimacy they had known in the Countess Castaigne’s tiny house with the blue front door in southern France. Yet here there should be a deeper emotion between them, now that the Stars and Stripes were to float with the Tricolor over the scarred fields of France.

Barbara did not answer and Nona, turning the handle of the door, walked in.

To her surprise she found that Barbara was not waiting, but that Agatha Burton was in the room glancing over something which she had written upon a pad. It was[106] rather an amusement to her companions that Agatha, who did not appear particularly clever, had confessed that she intended writing a book upon the war at its close and was keeping notes with this idea in mind.

[106]

She flushed now, apparently with annoyance at Nona’s intrusion.

“I am awfully sorry. I thought Mrs. Thornton was waiting for me. I did not realize anyone else was here,” Nona apologized.

Agatha’s manner immediately changed. She had a fashion, 

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