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 to the gate but after the car drove off, Alice immediately disappeared and David supposed she had gone with the guests who returned to the house where people were dancing again. David did not go in for he was battling with conflicting feelings. He was stirred by his thought of Alice as she went with him down the aisle of the church; he was sobered by the idea that his handshake of good-by to Lan was very likely to be the last time he might grasp that broad, square, earnest hand; he was roused by the disturbing contrast this wedding of Myra and Lan furnished to his marriage to Fidelia in the parlor of Dorothy Hess's home.

He argued that the contrast was due to this being a church wedding, with a large bridal party; he argued that, since Lan was going to war, that fact naturally endowed this marriage with an exalted tone entirely missing from his own wedding; but he could not down his own discomfort. No; there had been something noble in this night—something properly and inherently exalted and beautiful in Lan Blake's marriage to Myra Taine which had been lacking in David Herrick's to Fidelia Netley and which would not have been in the wedding at Streator, even if David then had been going to war.

He glanced up and noticed the stars; and the sight of them brought him to his camp with Fidelia on the sand of the shore; he thought how he had looked up at the stars, as he lay awake with his joy on his wedding night and exulted:

"Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee And then no more of Thee and Me,"