automobiles began to hum up and down the main street that stretched
along the river--twenty where there had been one not so long ago.

Keith found himself fighting to keep his eyes straight ahead when he
met a girl or a woman. Never had he believed fully and utterly in the
angelhood of the feminine until now. He passed perhaps a dozen on the
way to barracks, and he was overwhelmed with the desire to stop and
feast his eyes upon each one of them. He had never been a lover of
women; he admired them, he believed them to be the better part of man,
he had worshiped his mother, but his heart had been neither glorified
nor broken by a passion for the opposite sex. Now, to the bottom of his
soul, he worshiped that dozen! Some of them were homely, some of them
were plain, two or three of them were pretty, but to Keith their
present physical qualifications made no difference. They were white
women, and they were glorious, every one of them! The plainest of them
was lovely. He wanted to throw up his hat and shout in sheer joy. Four
years--and now he was back in angel land! For a space he forgot
McDowell.

His head was in a whirl when he came to barracks. Life was good, after
all. It was worth fighting for, and he was bound fight. He went
straight to McDowell's office. A moment after his knock on the door the
Inspector's secretary appeared.

"The Inspector is busy, sir," he said in response to Keith's inquiry.
"I'll tell him--"

"That I am here on a very important matter," advised Keith. "He will
admit me when you tell him that I bring information regarding a certain
John Keith."