They were almost exactly of the same age,
twenty-three, and as children had played together in the pleasant old
Kentucky town which had given them both their soft, winning drawl. But
Dick's people had moved North, and hers had stayed in the South, until
three years ago, when Rose and her father had started off on a tour of
Europe. In England she met George Winter, and did the one thing of all
others which she would have vowed never to do: she fell in love with a
clergyman. They had been married three months ago in Louisville, had
then visited his parents in Devonshire; and because Winter had not fully
recovered tone since an attack of influenza, he had accepted a
chaplaincy in the south of France. Rose Fitzgerald and Dick Carleton,
children of sisters, had put a marker in the book of their old
friendship, and were able to open it at the page where they had left off
years ago. She was not in the least hurt because he had let more than a
fortnight go by before calling, for she knew that he had come for the
aviation, and must have had head and hands full. She was not aware that
he found time to see a good deal of another young woman who had no claim
of old friendship; but even if she had known, she would have understood
and forgiven almost as one man understands and forgives another. For
quaintly feminine as she was, Rose often said, and felt, that "before a
woman can be a true lady she must be a gentleman." And, being a
gentleman, she can learn to be a "good fellow"--an invaluable
accomplishment for a woman.
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