"He is the only one in New York. But look how far off he is! It takes weeks for his letters to get to me."
"But he writes every day."
"Harry telephones every day. I tell you, Jane, the voice has a good deal to do with it. You like to HEAR a fellow say nice things. It beats ink all to pieces. It will go hard with him, perhaps, but he's young. He'll get over it."
"You are young, too. That is why you have gotten over George."
"I'm not as young as I was. But I've decided on Harry. If father doesn't let us get married right away, I'm liable to get over him, too. It's silly doing that all the time; one might never get married, you know. But father is firm. He says I can't, and he says he'll kick Harry into the middle of next summer. Father says I shall not marry into the regular army. He says they don't make good husbands. I've got the joke on him, though. He appealed to mother, and she forgot herself and said the same thing. They were quarrelling about it when I left the hotel. It was an awful jar to father. For two cents I'd elope with Harry."
"It would be pretty difficult for an officer on duty to elope, don't you think?" asked Graydon, amused.
"Not if he loved the girl. He does, too. But I haven't told you the worst. Mother says I am being absolutely spoiled out here in Manila, and she says flatly, that she's going to take me back to the States. Isn't it awful?"
"Back to the fellow in New York?" smiled Jane encouragingly.
Ethel thought for a moment and a dear little smile came into her troubled eyes.
"I hope he hasn't gone and fallen in love with some other girl," she said.
It was true, as Jane soon learned, that Mrs. Harbin had concluded to return to the United States with Ethel. Jane's aunt had grown immeasurably tired of Manila--and perhaps a little more tired of the Colonel. It was she who aroused the Colonel's antipathy to little Lieutenant Soper. She dwelt upon the dire misfortune that was possible if Ethel continued to bask in the society of "those young ninnies." The Colonel developed a towering rage and a great fear that Ethel might become fatally contaminated before she could be whisked off of the island. It was decided that Mrs. Harbin and Ethel should return to the United States soon after the first of March, to take up their residence in New York City.
"Mother wants to be a soldier's widow--on parole," sniffed Ethel, almost audibly enough for her father's ears.