a great deal. The State Department at Washington made me come down for
several weekends and your Military Officer at home had me in on three
successive days."

"Mr. Smith," she said, "you seem an honest man. Do you, in your heart,
believe yourself good enough for my Edith?"

"Had you asked me that six weeks ago," I said, "I should have answered
'No.' Before I spoke to Edith, that very same question flashed up within
me. I saw the golden sheen of her hair in the moonlight--for you do
sometimes have moonlight here in London--and wondered whether I had the
right to speak. Of course I was not good enough for her, but still I
felt that I was not altogether unfit. I might justly ask for her in the
face of high Heaven, the Passport Bureau at Washington, the War Zone
Bureau at the Custom-House, the head clerk at the Cunard office, the
watchman at the pier, the official who changed my American money into
your own very confusing monetary system, the man at the head of the
gang-plank, the man at the foot of the gang-plank, the steward who
filled my alien's declaration, the steward who gave me my landing-card,
several battalions of control officers, and approximately half the
Allied diplomatic services. When I spoke to Edith I had all the
documents in my breast-pocket, and my heart glowed with justifiable
confidence beneath them. The dear girl never asked for my college
certificate and my luggage check, but I have them all here."

"Perhaps it isn't necessary," she said. "You may have her, my dear boy."

"Without even looking at my Czecho-Slovak _visé_ my club dues for 1918,
and my inoculation receipt for typhoid and paratyphoid A and B?" I
stammered.