Dangerous Days ...................................................................................................................................................1

Mary Roberts Rinehart .............................................................................................................................1

Natalie Spencer was giving a dinner. She was not an easy hostess. Like most women of futile lives she lacked

a sense of proportion, and the small and unimportant details of the service absorbed her. Such conversation as

Yet the dinner was an unimportant one. It had been given with an eye more to the menu than to the guest list,

which was characteristic of Natalie's mental processes. It was also characteristic that when the final course

had been served without mishap, and she gave a sigh of relief before the gesture of withdrawal which was a

signal to the other women, that she had realized no lack in it. The food had been good, the service

satisfactory. She stood up, slim and beautifully dressed, and gathered up the women with a smile.

The movement found Doctor Haverford, at her left, unprepared and with his coffee cup in his hand. He put it

down hastily and rose, and the small cup overturned in its saucer, sending a smudge of brown into the cloth.

"Dreadfully awkward of me!" he said. The clergyman's smile of apology was boyish, but he was suddenly

aware that his hostess was annoyed. He caught his wife's amiable eyes on him, too, and they said quite

plainly that one might spill coffee at home one quite frequently did, to confess a good man's weakness

but one did not do it at Natalle Spencer's table. The rector's smile died into a sheepish grin.

For the first time since dinner began Natalie Spencer had a clear view of her husband's face. Not that that had

mattered particularly, but the flowers had been too high. For a small dinner, low flowers, always. She would

speak to the florist. But, having glanced at Clayton, standing tall and handsome at the head of the table, she

looked again. His eyes were fixed on her with a curious intentness. He seemed to be surveying her, from the

top of her burnished hair to the very gown she wore. His gaze made her vaguely uncomfortable. It was

Through the open door the half dozen women trailed out, Natalie in white, softly rustling as she moved, Mrs.

Haverford in black velvet, a trifle tight over her ample figure, Marion Hayden, in a very brief garment she

would have called a frock, perennial debutante that she was, rather negligible Mrs. Terry Mackenzie, and

trailing behind the others, frankly loath to leave the men, Audrey Valentine. Clayton Spencer's eyes rested on

Audrey with a smile of amused toleration, on her outrageously low green gown, that was somehow casually

elegant, on her long green earrings and jade chain, on the cigaret between her slim fingers.

Audrey's audacity always amused him. In the doorway she turned and nonchalantly surveyed the room.

"For heaven's sake, hurry!" she apostrophized the table. "We are going to knit I feel it. And don't give Chris

She went on, a slim green figure, moving slowly and reluctantly toward the drawingroom, her head held

high, a little smile still on her lips. But, alone for a moment, away from curious eyes, her expression changed,

her smile faded, her lovely, irregular face took on a curious intensity. What a devilish evening! Chris drinking

too much, talking wildly, and always with furtive eyes on her. Chris! Oh, well, that was life, she supposed.

She stopped before a long mirror and gave a bit of careless attention to her hair. With more care she tinted her

lips again with a cosmetic stick from the tiny, diamondstudded bag she carried. Then she turned and

surveyed the hall and the library beyond. A new portrait of Natalie was there, hanging on the wall under a

shaded light, and she wandered in, still with her cigaret, and surveyed it. Natalie had everything. The portrait

Mrs. Valentine's eyes narrowed slightly. She stood there, thinking about Natalie. She had not everything,

after all. There was something she lacked. Charm, perhaps. She was a cold woman. But, then, Clay was cold,

too. He was even a bit hard. Men said that; hard and ambitious, although he was popular. Men liked strong

She lounged into the drawingroom, smiling her slow, cool smile. In the big, uncarpeted alcove, where stood

Natalie's great painted piano, Marion Hayden was playing softly, carefully posed for the entrance of the men.

Natalie was sitting with her hands folded, in the exact center of a peacockblue divan. The others were

"Very pretty effect, Toots!" Audrey called. And Miss Hayden gave her the unashamed smile of one woman

Audrey had a malicious impulse. She sat down beside Natalie, and against the blue divan her green gown

shrieked a discord. She was vastly amused when Natalie found an excuse and moved away, to dispose herself

"Childrensons," put in Mrs. Mackenzie. She was a robust, big woman with kindly eyes, and she was

"Women!" called Toots Hayden. She was still posed, but she had stopped playing. Mrs. Haverford's eyes

"You are all wrong," said Audrey, and lighted a fresh cigaret. "They want different things at different ages.

That's why marriage is such a rotten failure. First they want women; any woman will do, really. So they

marry any woman. Then they want money. After that they want power and place. And when they've got

"Good gracious, Audrey, what a cynical speech!" said Mrs. Mackenzie. "If they've been married all that time

She had the impulse of the unhappy woman to hurt, but she was rather ashamed of herself, too. These women

were her friends. Let them go on believing that life was a thing of lasting loves, that men were true to the end,

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was just being clever! Let's talk about the war. It's the only thing worth talking about,

In the diningroom Clayton Spencer, standing tall and erect, had watched the women go out. How typical the

party was of Natalie, of her meticulous care in small things and her indifference or real ignorance as to what

counted. Was it indifference, really, or was it supreme craftiness, the stupidity of her dinners, the general

unattractiveness of the women she gathered around her, the illassortment of people who had little in

Of all the party, only Audrey and the rector had interested him even remotely. Audrey amused him. Audrey

was a curious mixture of intelligence and frivolity. She was a good fellow. Sometimes he thought she was a

nice woman posing as not quite nice. He didn't know. He was not particularly analytical, but at least she had

The rector was the other, and he was relieved to find Doctor Haverford moving up to the vacant place at his

"I've been wanting to see you, Clay," he said in an undertone. "It's rather stupid to ask you how you found

Clayton Spencer glanced about the table. Rodney Page, the architect, was telling a story clearly not for the

ears of the clergy, and his own son, Graham, forced in at the last moment to fill a vacancy, was sitting alone,

"Good heavens, man, it's the same thing. It is only the Allies who are standing between us and trouble now.

The French are just holding their own. The British are fighting hard, but they're fighting at home too. We

"Even if we are," he said, hopefully, "I understand our part of it will be purely naval. And I believe our navy

"Probably," Clay retorted. "If it had anything to fight! But with the German fleet bottled up, and the

The rector made no immediate reply, and Clayton seemed to expect none. He sat back, tapping the table with

long, nervous fingers, and his eyes wandered from the table around the room. He surveyed it all with much

the look he had given Natalie, a few moments before, searching, appraising, vaguely hostile. Yet it was a

lovely room, simple and stately. Rodney Page, who was by way of Deing decorator for the few, as he was

architect for the many, had done the room, with its plainly paneled walls, the overmantel with an old

painting inset, its lion chairs, its two console tables with each its pair of porcelain jars. Clayton liked the

dignity of the room, but there were times when he and Natalie sat at the great table alone, with only the

candles for light and the rest of the room in a darkness from which the butler emerged at stated intervals and

retreated again, when he felt the oppression of it. For a dinner party, with the brilliant colors of the women's

gowns, it was ideal. For Natalie and himself alone, with the long silences between them that seemed to grow

He was frequently aware that both Natalie and himself were talking for the butler's benefit.

>From the room his eyes traveled to Graham, sitting alone, uninterested, dull and somewhat flushed. And on

Graham, too, he fixed that clear appraising gaze that had vaguely disconcerted Natalie. The boy had had too

much to drink, and unlike the group across the table, it had made him sullen and quiet. He sat there, staring

moodily at the cloth and turning his glass around in fingers that trembled somewhat.

"London as dark as they say?" inquired Christopher Valentine. He was a thin young man, with a small,

affectedly curled mustache. Clayton did not care for him, but Natalie found him amusing. "I haven't been

"Most of the fellows I know over there are doing something. I'd like to run over, but what's the use? Nobody

"Unless they go for war contracts, eh?" said Valentine pleasantly, a way he had of taking the edge off the

frequent impertinence of his speech. "No, I'm not going over. We're not popular over there, I understand.

"If you want my candid opinion, no. We've been waving a red flag called the Monroe Doctrine for some little

time, as a signal that we won't stand for Europe coming over here and grabbing anything. If we're going to be

"We might want to 'grab' as you term it, a share in putting the madmen of Europe into chains," he said. "I

"Only as to clothes, women and filet of sole," Chris returned flippantly. Then, seeing Graham glowering at

him across the table, he dropped his affectation of frivolity. "What's the use of our going in now?" he argued.

"This Somme push is the biggest thing yet. They're going through the Germans like a hay cutter through a

"And what about the Allies? Have they lost nothing?" This was Clayton's attorney, an Irishman named Denis

Nolan. There had been two n's in the Denis, originally, but although he had disposed of a part of his

birthright, he was still belligerently Irish. "What about Rumania? What about the Russians at Lemberg? What

"You Irish!" said the rector, genially. "Always fighting the world and each other. Tell me, Nolan, why is it

He felt that that was rather neat. But Nolan was regarding him acrimoniously, and Clayton apparently had not

The dispute went on, Chris Valentine alternately flippant and earnest, the rector conciliatory, Graham

glowering and silent. Nolan had started on the Irish question, and Rodney baited him with the prospect of

conscription there. Nolan's voice, full and mellow and strangely sweet, dominated the room.

But Clayton was not listening. He had heard Nolan air his views before. He was a trifle acid, was Nolan. He

needed mellowing, a woman in his life. But Nolan had loved once, and the girl had died. With the curious

"Strange race," Clayton reflected idly, as Nolan's voice sang on. "Don't know what they want, but want it like

It occurred to him then that his own reflection was as odd as the fidelity of the Irish. He had been faithful to

He did not pursue that line of thought. He sat back and resumed his nervous tapping of the cloth, not

listening, hardly thinking, but conscious of a discontent that was beyond analysis.

Clayton had been aware, since his return from the continent and England days before, of a change in himself.

He had not recognized it until he reached home. And he was angry with himself for feeling it. He had gone

abroad for certain Italian contracts and had obtained them. A year or two, if the war lasted so long, and he

would be on his feet at last, after years of struggle to keep his organization together through the hard times

that preceded the war. He would be much more than on his feet. Given three more years of war, and he would

And now that the goal was within sight, he was finding that it was not money he wanted. There were some

things money could not buy. He had always spent money. His anxieties had not influenced his scale of living.

Money, for instance, could not buy peace for the world; or peace for a man, either. It had only one value for a

"Three things," said the rector, apropos of something or other, and rather oratorically, "are required by the

normal man. Work, play, and love. Assure the crippled soldier that he has lost none of these, and "

Work and play and love. Well, God knows he had worked. Play? He would have to take up golf again more

regularly. He ought to play three times a week. Perhaps he could take a motortour now and then, too.

Love? He had not thought about love very much. A married man of fortyfive certainly had no business

thinking about love. No, he certainly did not want love. He felt rather absurd, even thinking about it. And yet,

in the same flash, came a thought of the violent passions of his early twenties. There had been a time when he

had suffered horribly because Natalie had not wanted to marry him. He was glad all that was over. No, he

"How about those plans, Rodney?" he inquired genially. "Natalie says you have them ready to look over."

"Tomorrow, then. Better not lose any time. Building is going to be a slow matter, at the best."

"Slow and expensive," Page added. He smiled at his host, but Clayton Spencer remained grave.

"I've been away," he said, "and I don't know what Natalie and you have cooked up between you. But just

remember this: I want a comfortable country house. I don't want a public library."

Page looked uncomfortable. The move into the drawingroom covered his uneasiness, but he found a

"I have tried to carry out Natalie's ideas, Clay," he said. "She wanted a sizeable place, you know. A wing for

Clayton's eyes roamed about the room, where portly Mrs. Haverford was still knitting placidly, where the

Chris Valentines were quarreling under pretense of raillery, where Toots Hayden was smoking a cigaret in a

corner and smiling up at Graham, and where Natalie, exquisite and precise, was supervising the laying out of

"She would, of course," he observed, rather curtly,, and, moving through a French window, went out onto a

He was irritated with himself. What had come over him? He shook himself, and drew a long breath of the

sweet night air. His tall, boyishly straight figure dominated the little place. In the halflight he looked,

indeed, like an overgrown boy. He always looked like Graham's brother, anyhow; it was one of Natalie's

complaints against him. But he put the thought of Natalie away, along with his new discontent. By George, it

was something to feel that, if a man could not fight in this war, at least he could make shells to help end it.

Oblivious to the laughter in the room behind him, the clink of glass as whiskeyandsoda was brought in, he

planned there in the darkness, new organization, new expansions and found in it a great content.

He was proud of his mills. They were his, of his making. The small iron foundry of his father's building had

developed into the colossal furnaces that night after night lighted the downtown district like a great

conflagration. He was proud of his mills and of his men. He liked to take men and see them work out his

judgment of them. He was not often wrong. Take that room behind him: Rodney Page, dilettante, liked by

women, who called him "Roddie," a trifle unscrupuous but not entirely a knave, the sort of man one trusted

with everything but one's wife; Chris, too only he let married women alone, and forgot to pay back the

money he borrowed. There was only one man in the room about whom he was beginning to mistrust his

Perhaps it was because he had so recently come from lands where millions of boys like Graham were pouring

out their young lives like wine, that Clayton Spencer was seeing Graham with a new vision. He turned and

glanced back into the drawingroom, where Graham, in the center of that misfit group and not quite himself,

was stooping over Marion Hayden. They would have to face that, of course, the woman urge in the boy. Until

now his escapades had been boyish ones, a few debts frankly revealed and as frankly regretted, some college

mischiefs, a rather serious gambling fever, quickly curbed. But never women, thank God.

But now the boy was through with college, and already he noticed something new in their relationship.

Natalie had always spoiled him, and now there were, with increasing frequency, small consultations in her

room when he was shut out, and he was beginning to notice a restraint in his relations with the boy, as though

He was confident that Natalie was augmenting Graham's allowance from her own. His salary, rather, for he

had taken the boy into the business, not as a partner that would come later but as the manager of a

department. He never spoke to Natalie of money. Her house bills were paid at the office without question.

But only that day Miss Potter, his secretary, had reported that Mrs. Spencer's bank had called up and he had

He laid the cause of his discontent to Graham, finally. The boy had good stuff in him. He was not going to

allow Natalie to spoil him, or to withdraw him into that little realm of detachment in which she lived. Natalie

did not need him, and had not, either as a lover or a husband, for years. But the boy did.

There was a little stir in the room behind. The Haverfords were leaving, and the Hayden girl, who was plainly

finding the party dull. Graham was looking down at her, a tall, handsome boy, with Natalie's blonde hair but

"Come around tomorrow," she was saying. "About four. There's always a crowd about five, you know."

Clayton knew, and felt a misgiving. The Hayden house was a late afternoon loafing and meeting place for the

idle sons and daughters of the rich. Not the conservative old families, who had developed a sense of the

responsibility of wealth, but of the second generation of easily acquired money. As she went out, with

"Terrible house, the Haydens. Just one step from the Saturday night carouse in Clay's mill district."

"Thanks, I will." But his tone was distant. "You know she comes out this winter."

Gentle Mrs. Haverford glanced up at him quickly. "You know she doesn't approve of me."

"Well, ask her," he said. And there was a real bitterness under the lightness of his tone. "I'll come, of course,

Mrs. Haverford. Thank you for asking me. I haven't a lot of time. I'm a sort of clerk down at the mill, you

Natalie overheard, and her eyes met Clayton's, with a glance of malicious triumph. She had been deeply

resentful that he had not made Graham a partner at once. He remembered a conversation they had had a few

"Why should he have to start at the bottom?" she had protested. "You have never been quite fair to him,

Clay." His boyish diminutive had stuck to him. "You expect him to know as much about the mill now as you

"Not at all. I want him to learn. That's precisely the reason why I'm not taking him in at once."

"I pay my other managers three thousand," he had said, still patient. "He will live here. His car can be kept

here, without expense. Personally, I think it too much money for the service he will be able to give for the

And, although she had let it go at that, he had felt in her a keen resentment. Graham had got a car of his own,

was using it hard, if the bills the chauffeur presented were an indication, and Natalie had overdrawn her

The evening wore on. Two tables of bridge were going, with Denis Nolan sitting in at one. Money in large

amounts was being written in on the bridge scores. The air of the room was heavy with smoke, and all the

men and some of the women were drinking rather too much. There were splotches of color under the tan in

Chris's words rankled in Clayton Spencer's mind. A step from the Saturday night carouse. How much better

was this sort of thing? A dull party, driven to cards and drink to get through the evening. And what sort of

home life were he and Natalie giving the boy? Either this, or the dreary evenings when they were alone, with

Natalie sifting with folded hands, or withdrawing to her boudoir upstairs, where invariably she summoned

He went into the library and shut the door. The room rested him, after the babble across. He lighted a cigar,

and stood for a moment before Natalie's portrait. It had been painted while he was abroad at, he suspected,

He could look at it dispassionately, as he had never quite cared to regard Natalie. Between them, personally,

there was always the element she never allowed him to forget, that she had given him a son. This was Natalie

herself, Natalie at fortyone, girlish, beautiful, fretful andselfish. Natalie with whom he was to live the rest

of his life, who was to share his wealth and his future, and with whom he shared not a single thought in

He had a curious sense of disloyalty as he sat down at his desk and picked up a pad and pencil. But a moment

later he had forgotten her, as he had forgotten the party across the hall. He had work to do. Thank God for

Natalie was in bed when he went upstairs. Through the door of his dressingroom he could see her lying,

surrounded by papers. Natalie's handsome bed was always covered with things, her handkerchief, a novel, her

silk dressinggown flung over the footboard, sometimes bits of dress materials and lace. Natalie did most of

He went in and, clearing a space, sat down on the foot of the bed, facing her. Her hair was arranged in a loose

knot on top of her head, and there was a tiny space, perhaps a quarter of an inch, slightly darker than the rest.

He realized with a little start that she had had her hair touched up during his absence. Still, she looked very

pretty, her skin slightly glistening with its night's bath of cold cream, her slim arms lying out on the blue silk

"I told Doctor Haverford tonight that we would like to give him a car, Natalie," he began directly. It was

"To ride about in, my dear. It's rather a large parish, you know. And I don't feel exactly comfortable seeing

"You are throwing a sop to Providence, aren't you?" she asked shrewdly. "Throwing bread on the waters! I

daresay he angled for it. You're easy, Clay. Give you a good dinner it was a nice dinner, wasn't it?"

"Well, what was wrong?" she demanded. "I saw when I went out that you were angry about something. Your

"Oh, come now, Natalie," he protested. "It wasn't anything of the sort. The dinner was all right. The guests

were all right. I may have unconsciously resented your attitude about Doctor Haverford. Certainly he didn't

"That isn't what was wrong at dinner." "Do you really want me to tell you?" "Not if it's too disagreeable."

"Oh, no, you don't bully. It's worse. It's the way you look. Your face sets. Well?"

"Very much. It seemed a trifle low, but you know I always like your clothes." He was almost pathetically

"There!" she said, brushing the papers aside. "Now we're getting at it. Was I anything like as low as Audrey

Valentine? Of course not! Her back You just drive me to despair, Clay. Nothing I do pleases you. The very

tone of that secretary of yours today, when I told her about that overdraft it was positively insulting!"

"I don't like overdrafts," he said, without any irritation. "When you want extra amounts you have only to let

"You are always finding fault with me," she complained. "It's either money, or my clothes, or Graham, or

something." Her eyes filled. She looked young and absurdly childish. But a talk he had had with the rector

was still in his mind. It was while they were still at the table, and Nolan had been attacking the British

"We get out of this world largely what we put into it," he had said. "You give largely, Clay, and you receive

"You think, then," he had asked, "that we only receive as we give? I don't mean material things, of course."

The rector had fixed him with kindly, rather faded old eyes. "That has been my experience," he said.

"Happiness for instance only comes when we forget our eternal search for it, and try to make others happy.

Even religion is changing. The old selfish idea of saving our own souls has given way largely to the saving of

others, by giving them a chance to redeem themselves. Decent living conditions "

He had gone on, but Clayton had not listened very intently. He had been wondering if happiness was not the

thing he had somehow missed. It was then that he had decided to give the car. If, after all, that would make

"I don't want to find fault with you, Natalie," he said gravely. "I would like to see you happy. Sometimes I

think you are not. I have my business, but you have nothing to do, and I suppose you wouldn't be interested

in warwork, would you? There are a lot of committees, and since I've been in England I realize what a vast

"Nothing to do," she looked up, her eyes wide and indignant. "But of course you would think that. This house

"Let's be honest, Natalie," he said, with a touch of impatience. "Actually how much time each day do you

"I'll not discuss it with you." She took up a typewritten sheet and pretended to read it carefully. Clayton had a

halfhumorous, halfirritated conviction that if he was actually hunting happiness he had begun his search

"Decorator's estimates for the new house." Her voice was resentful. "You'll have to see them some time."

"Library curtains, gray Chippendale velvet, gold gimp, faced with colonial yellow," he read an item picked at

"But, look here, Natalie," he expostulated. "This is to be a country house, isn't it? I thought you wanted

He glanced down at the total. The hangings alone, with a tapestry or two, were to be thirtyfive thousand

"It seems to me you and Rodney have been pretty busy while I've been away," he remarked. "Well, I want

you to be happy, my dear. Only I don't want to tie up a fortune just now. We may get into this war, and if

we do " He rose, and yawned, his arms above his head. "I'm off to bed," he said. "Big day tomorrow. I'll

"He'll do nothing of the sort," she said sharply. "He's all I have. All. Do you think I'm going to send him over

"I won't want him to go, of course. But if the thing comes he's of age, you know."

"You're hard, Clay," she accused him. "You're hard all the way through. You're proud, too. Proud and hard.

You'd want to be able to say your son was in the army. It's not because you care anything about the war,

except to make money out of it. What is the war to you, anyhow? You don't like the English, and as for

He was not the less angry because he realized the essential truth of part of what she said. He felt no great

impulse of sympathy with any of the combatants. He knew the gravity of the situation rather than its tragedy.

He did not like war, any war. He saw no reason why men should kill. But this war was a fact. He had had no

His first impulse was to leave her in dignified silence. But she was crying, and I he disliked leaving her in

tears. Dead as was his love for her, and that night, somehow, he knew that it was dead, she was still his wife.

They had had some fairly happy years together, long ago. And he felt the need, too, of justification.

"Perhaps you are right, Natalie," he said, after a moment. "I haven't cared about this war as much as I should.

Not the human side of it, anyhow. But you ought to understand that by making shells for the Allies, I am not

only making money for myself; they need the shells. And I'll give them the best. I don't intend only to profit

"Oh, duty, duty! I'm sick of the word." She bent forward and suddenly caught one of his hands. "You won't

"If you'll keep your hands off, too. We're not in it, yet. God knows I hope we won't be. But if I promise not to

"I haven't any more influence over Graham than that," she said, and snapped her finger. But she did not look

"Oh, all right." Her voice and face were sulky. She looked much as Graham had that evening at the table.

"All right," she said, indifferently. "Have you any preerence as to color for your rooms in the new house?"

He was sorry for his anger, and after all, these things which seemed so unimportant to him were the things

"I've never noticed," she replied. And, small bundle of samples in her hand, resumed her reading and her

Outside his wife's door he hesitated. Then he crossed and without knocking entered Graham's bedroom. The

boy was lounging in a long chair by an open fire. He was in his dressing gown and slippers, and an empty

whiskeyandsoda glass stood beside him on a small stand. Graham was sound asleep. Clayton touched him

on the shoulder, but he slept on, his head to one side, his breathing slow and heavy. It required some little

Graham sat up suddenly and looked at him. The whites of his eyes were red, but he had slept off the dinner

"Sorry, sir," he said. "Must have had too much champagne. Wasn't much else to do, was there? Mother's

"I'll bring you some water from my room," he said. "And I don't want to see you this way again, Graham.

When a man cannot take a little wine at his own table without taking too much he fails to be entirely a

He went out. When he came back, Graham was standing by the fire in his pajamas, looking young and rather

ashamed. Clayton had a flash of those earlier days when he had come in to bid the boy good night, and there

had always been that last request for water which was to postpone the final switching off of the light.

"I'm a pretty bad egg, I guess. You'd better shove me off the dock and let me swim or drown."

"You haven't had very much time. I've been a good many years learning the business."'

"I'll never be any good. Not there. If there was something to build up it would be different, but it's all done.

You've done it. I'm only a sort of sublimated clerk. I don't mean," he added hastily, "that I think I ought to

have anything more. It's only that well, the struggle's over, if you know what I mean."

He moved to the doorway. Graham, carafe in hand, stood staring ahead of him. He had the courage of the last

"Because I'm not doing any good here. And because I'd like to see if I have any good stuff in me. All the

"It's about as worthy as making money out of shells, when we haven't any reason for selling them to the

He looked rather frightened then. But Clayton was not angry. He saw Natalie's fine hand there, and the boy's

"Think that over, Graham," he said gravely. "I don't believe you quite mean it. Goodnight."

He went across to his own bedroom, where his silk pajamas, neatly folded, lay on his painted Louis XVI bed.

Under his reading lamp there was a book. It was a part of Natalie's decorative scheme for the room; it's

binding was mauve, to match the hangings. For the first time since the room had been done over during his

He undressed slowly, his mind full of Graham and the problem he presented. Then he thought of Natalie, and

of the little things that made up her life and filled her days. He glanced about the room, beautiful, formal,

exquisitely appointed. His father's portrait was gone from over the mantel, and an old French watercolor

hung there instead. That was too bad of Natalie. Or had it been Rodney? He would bring it back. And he gave

a fleeting thought to Graham and his request to go abroad. He had not meant it. It was sheer reaction. But he

He lighted a cigaret, and getting into bed turned on his reading lamp. Queer how a man could build, and then

find that after all he did not care for the achievement. It was the building alone that was worth while.

"When first I loved I gave my very soul Utterly unreserved to Love's control, But Love deceived me,

wrenched my youth away, And made the gold of life forever gray. Long I lived lonely, yet I tried in vain

With any other joy to stifle pain; There is no other joy, I learned to know, And so returned to love, as long

ago, Yet I, this little while ere I go hence, Love very lightly now, in self defense."

"Twaddle," said Clayton Spencer, and put the book away. That was the sort of stuff men like Rodney lived

After he had put out the light he lay for a long time, staring into the darkness. It was not love he wanted: he

was through with all that. Power was the thing, integrity and power. To yield to no man, to achieve

independence for one's soul not that he put it that way. He formulated it, drowsily: 'Not to give a damn for

any one, so long as you're right.' Of course, it was not always possible to know if one was right. He yawned.

His conscious mind was drowsing, and from the depths below, released of the sentry of his waking hours,

There was no moral to be adduced from Graham's waking the next morning. He roused, reluctantly enough,

but blithe and hungry. He sang as he splashed in his shower, chose his tie whistling, and went down the

Clayton was already at the table in the breakfast room, sitting back with the newspaper, his coffee at his

elbow, the first cigarette of the morning half smoked. He looked rather older in the morning light. Small fine

threads had begun to show themselves at the corners of his eyes. The lines of repression from the nostrils to

the corners of the mouth seemed deeper. But his invincible look of boyishness persisted, at that.

There was no awkwardness in Graham's "Morning, dad." He had not forgotten the night before, but he had

already forgiven himself. He ignored the newspaper at his plate, and dug into his grapefruit.

"I'll read going down in the car. Can't stand war news on an empty stomach. Mother all right this morning?"

"Well, I should say she needs it, after last night. How in the world we manage, with all the interesting people

He went slowly up the stairs. In her pink bedroom Natalie had just wakened. Madeleine, her elderly French

maid, had brought her breakfast, and she was lying back among the pillows, the litter of the early mail about

her and a morning paper on her knee. He bent over and kissed her, perfunctorily, and he was quick to see that

"I'll just play around. I'm lunching out, and I may run out with Rodney to Linndale. The landscape men are

She picked up the newspaper as though to end the discussion. He saw then that she was reading the society

news, and he rather more than surmised that she had not even glanced at the black headings which on the first

"Some things have to go in in the fall, Clay. For heaven's sake, don't look like a thunder cloud."

"All I want you to do, Natalie, is to consult me. I want you to have a free hand, but some one with a sense of

responsibility ought to check up these expenditures. But it isn't only that. I'd like to have a hand in the thing

myself. I've rather looked forward to the time when we could have the sort of country place we wanted."

"I force it on you," she cried, and laughed in a forced and highpitched note. "Just because I won't be

overridden without a protest! I'm through, that's all. I shan't go near the place again."

"You don't understand," he persisted patiently. "I happen to like gardens. I had an idea I told you about it

of trying to duplicate the old garden at home. You remember it. When we went there on our honeymoon "

"Of course I didn't want to copy it exactly. It was old and out of condition. But there were a lot of

oldfashioned flowers However, if you intend to build an Italian villa, naturally "

"I don't intend to build anything, or to plant anything." Her voice was frozen. "You go ahead. Do it in your

Which was what he carried away with him that morning to the mill. He was not greatly disturbed by her

threat to keep her hands off. He knew quite well, indeed, that the afternoon would find her, with Rodney

Page, picking her way in her highheeled shoes over the waste that was some day to bloom, not like the rose

of his desire but according to the formal and rigid blueprint which Rodney would be carrying. But in five

minutes he had put the incident out of his mind. After all, if it gave her happiness and occupation, certainly

she needed both. And his powers of inhibition were strong. For many years he had walled up the small

frictions of his married life and its disappointments, and outside that wall had built up an existence of his

When he went downstairs he found that Graham had ordered his own car and was already in it, drawing on

"Have to come back uptown early, dad," he called in explanation, and drove off, going at the reckless speed

Clayton rode down alone in the limousine. He had meant to outline his plans of expansion to Graham, but he

had had no intention of consulting him. In his own department the boy did neither better nor worse than any

other of the dozens of young men in the organization. If he had shown neither special aptitude for nor interest

in the business, he had at least not signally failed to show either. Now, paper and pencil in hand, Clayton

jotted down the various details of the new system in their sequence; the building of a forging plant to make

the rough casts for the new Italian shells out of the steel from the furnaces, the construction of a new spur to

the little railway which bound the old plant together with its shining steel rails. There were questions of

supplies and shipping and bank credits to face, the vast and complex problems of the complete new munition

works, to be built out of town and involving such matters as the housing of enormous numbers of employees.

He scrawled figures and added them. Even with the size of the foreign contract their magnitude startled him.

He leaned back, his mouth compressed, the lines from the nostrils to the corners deeper than ever.

Outside the gates to the mill enclosure he heard an early extra being called, and bought it. The Austrian

premier had been assassinated. The successful French counterattack against Verdun was corroborated, also.

On the center of the front page was the first photograph to reach America of a tank. He inspected it with

interest. So the Allies had at last shown same inventive genius of their own! Perhaps this was but the

beginning. Even at that, enough of these fighting mammoths, and the war might end quickly. With the tanks,

and the Allied offensive and the evidence of discontent in Austria, the thing might after all be over before

He reflected, however, that an early peace would not be an unmixed blessing for him. He wanted the war to

end: he hated killing. He felt inarticulately that something horrible was happening to the world. But

personally his plans were premised on a war to last at least two years more, until the fall of 1918. That would

let him out, cover the cost of the new plant, bring renewals of his foreign contracts, justify those stupendous

He wondered, rather uncomfortably, what he would do, under the circumstances, if it were in his power to

In his office in the mill administration building, he found the general manager waiting. Through the door into

the conference room beyond he could see the superintendents of the various departments, with Graham rather

aloof and detached, and a sprinkling of the most important foremen. On his desk, neatly machined, was the

first tentative shellcase made in the mill machineshop, an experiment rather than a realization.

Hutchinson, the general manager, was not alone. Opposite him, very neatly dressed in his best clothes, his hat

in his hand and a set expression on his face, was one of the boss rollers of the steel mill, Herman Klein. At

"I've just been saying, Mr. Spencer," he said, in good English, but with the guttural accent which thirty years

"Because of that l" He pointed, without intentional drama, at the shellcase. "I can't make those shells for

"I am, sir. It is not that. It iss that I " His face worked. He had dropped back to the old idiom, after years of

painful struggle to abandon it. "It iss that I am a German, also. I have people there, in the war. To make shells

"He is determined, Mr. Spencer," said Hutchinson. "I have been arguing with him, but you can't argue with

"I understand how you feel, Klein," he observed. "But of course you know, whether you go or stay, the shells

The prospective loss of Klein was a rather serious one. Clayton, seated behind his great desk, eyed him

keenly, and then stooped to bribery. He mentioned a change in the wage scale, with bonuses to all foremen

and rollers. He knew Klein's pride in the mill, and he outlined briefly the growth that was about to be

developed. But the boss roller remained obdurate. He understood that such things were to be, but it was not

necessary that he assist Germany's enemies against her. Against the determination in his heavy square figure

Clayton argued in vain. When, ten minutes later, he went into the conference room, followed by a secretary

with a sheaf of papers, the mill was minus a boss roller, and there was rankling in his mind Klein's last words.

"I haf no objection, Mr. Spencer, to your making money out of this war, but I will not."

There had been no insolence in his tone. He had gone out, with his heavy German stolidity of mien

Graham left the conference that morning in a rather exalted mood. The old mill was coming into its own at

last. He had a sense of boyish triumph in the new developments, a feeling of being a part of big activities that

would bring rich rewards. And he felt a new pride in his father. He had sat, a little way from the long table,

and had watched the faces of the men gathered about it as clearly and forcibly the outlines of the new

departure were given out. Hitherto "Spencer's" had made steel only. Now, they were not only to make the

steel, but they were to forge the ingots into rough casts; these casts were then to be carried to the new

munition works, there to be machined, drilled, polished, provided with fuses, which "Spencer's" were also to

The question of speeding production had been faced and met. The various problems had been discussed and

the bonus system tentatively taken up. Then the men had dispersed, each infected with the drive of his father's

contagious force. "Pretty fine old boy," Graham had considered. And he wondered vaguely if, when his time

came, he would be able to take hold. For a few minutes Natalie's closetings lost their effect. He saw his

father, not as one from whom to hide extravagance and unpaid bills, but as the head of a great concern that

was now to be a part of the war itself. He wandered into his father's office, and picked up the shell. Clayton

"Think you did, sir. Carried them off their feet. Pretty, isn't it?" He held up the shellcase. "If a fellow could

"They are to help to end the war," said Clayton, crisply. "Don't forget that, boy." And went back to his steady

Graham went out of the building into the mill yard. The noise always irritated him. He had none of Clayton's

joy and understanding of it. To Clayton each sound had its corresponding activity. To Graham it was merely

din, an annoyance to his ears, as the mill yard outraged his fastidiousness. But that morning he found it rather

more bearable. He stooped where, in front of the store, the storekeeper had planted a tiny garden. Some small

lateblossoming chrysanthemums were still there and he picked one and put it in his buttonhole.

His own office was across the yard. He dodged in front of a yard locomotive, picked his way about masses of

lumber and the general litter of all mill yards, and opened the door of his own building. Just inside his office

a girl was sitting on a straight chair, her hat a trifle crooked, and her eyes red from crying. He paused in

She was rather a pretty girl, even now. She stood up at his voice and made an effort to straighten her hat.

"I haven't heard anything that ought to make Miss Anna Klein weep of a nice, frosty morning in October.

"I'm telling you, Mr. Spencer. He won't help to make those shells. He's been acting queer for three or four

"As if it made any difference," she went on irritably. "Some one else will get his job. That's all. What does he

care about the Germans? He left them and came to America as soon as he could walk."

"Now let's get this," he said. "He won't make shells for the Allies and so he's given up his position. All right.

That's bad, but he's a good workman. He'll not have any trouble getting another job. Now, why are you

"I didn't think you'd want me to stay on." Putting her fear into words brought back her long hours of terror.

She collapsed into the chair again and fell to unquiet sobbing. Graham was disturbed.

"You're a queer girl," he said. "Why should that lose me my most valued assistant?"

When she made no reply he got up and going over to her put a hand on her shoulder. "Tell me that," he said.

He looked down at her. The hair grew very soft and blonde at the nape of her neck, and he ran a finger lightly

"And, even if it had, which you are a goose for thinking, you're just as good in your line as your father is in

his. I've been expecting any time to hear of your leaving me for a handsomer man!"

He had been what he would have termed jollying her back to normality again. But to his intense surprise she

suddenly leaned back and looked up into his face. There was no doubting what he saw there. Just for a

moment the situation threatened to get out of hand. Then he patted her shoulders and put the safety of his

"Run away and bathe your eyes," he said, "and then come back here looking like the best secretary in the

But after she had gone he sat for some little time idly rapping a pencil on the top of his desk. By Jove! Anna

Klein! Of all girls in the world! It was rather a pity, too. She was a nice little thing, and in the last few months

she had changed a lot. She had been timid at first, and hideously dressed. Lately she had been almost smart.

Those earrings now they changed her a lot. Queer how things went on in a girl's mind, and a fellow

didn't know until something happened. He settled his tie and smoothed back his heavy hair.

During the remainder of the day he began to wonder if he had not been a fatuous idiot. Anna did her work

with the thoroughness of her German blood plus her American training. She came back minus her hat, and

with her eyes carefully powdered, and not once during the morning was he able to meet her eyes fully. By the

middle of the afternoon sex vanity and curiosity began to get the better of his judgment, and he made an

excuse, when she stood beside him over some papers, her hand on the desk, to lay his fingers over hers. She

drew her hand away quickly, and when he glanced up, boyishly smiling, her face was flushed.

"Please," she said. And he felt hurt and rebuffed. He had no sentiment for her whatever, but the devil of

mischief of twentytwo was behind him, urging him on to the eternal experiment. He was very formal with

her for the rest of the day, and had the satisfaction of leaving her, at four o'clock, whitefaced and miserable

He forgot her immediately, in the attempt to leave the mill without encountering his father. Clayton, he knew,

would be staying late, and would be exacting similar tribute to the emergency from the entire force. Also, he

had been going about the yard with contractors most of the afternoon. But Graham made his escape safely. It

was two hours later when his father, getting into the limousine, noticed the absence of the boy's red car, and

Suddenly Clayton felt a reaction from the activities of the day. He sank back in the deeply padded seat, and

felt tired and in some odd fashion lonely. He would have liked to talk to Graham on the way uptown, if

only to crystallize his own thoughts. He would have liked to be going home to review with Natalie the day's

events, the fine spirit of his men, the small difficulties. But Natalie hated the mention of the mill.

He thought it probable, too, that they were dining out. Yes, he remembered. They were dining at the Chris

Valentines. Well, that was better than it might have been. They were not dull, anyhow. His mind wandered to

the Valentine house, small, not too wellordered, frequently noisy, but always gay and extremely smart.

He thought of Audrey, and her curious friendship with Natalie. Audrey the careless, with her dark lazy

charm, her deep and rather husky contralto, her astonishing little French songs, which she sang with

nonchalant grace, and her crowds of boyish admirers whom she alternately petted and bullied surely she

Yet, in the last year or so, he had been continually coming across them together at the club, at luncheon in

the women's dining room, at his own house, Natalie always perfectly and expensively dressed, Audrey in the

He smiled a little. Certain of Audrey's impertinences came to his mind. She was an amusing young woman.

He had an idea that she was always in debt, and that the fact concerned her very little. He fancied that few

things concerned her very deeply, including Chris. But she knew about food. Her dinners were as casual as

her house, as to service, but they were worth eating. She claimed to pay for them out of her bridge winnings,

"I'm going to have a party, Clay," she had said. "I've made two killings at bridge, and somebody has shipped

Chris some ducks. If you'll send me some cigarets like the last, I'll make it Tuesday."

The pleasant rolling of the car soothed him. The street flashed by, brilliant with lights that in far perspective

seemed to meet. The shop windows gleamed with color. From curb to curb were other cars like the one in

which he rode, carrying home other men like himself to whatever the evening held in store. He remembered

London at this hour, already dark and quiet, its few motors making their cautious way in the dusk, its throngs

of clerks, nearly all women now, hurrying home to whatever dread the night might hold. And it made him

slightly more complacent. These things that he had taken for granted before had since his return assumed the

He reviewed his unrest of the night before, and smiled at it. Happiness. Happiness came from a sense of

achievement. Integrity and power, that was the combination. The respect of one's fellow men, the day's work

well done. Romance was done, at his age, but there remained the adventure of success. A few years more,

and he would leave the mill to Graham and play awhile. After that he had always liked politics. They

needed business men in politics. If men of training and leisure would only go in for it there would be some

chance of cleaning up the situation. Yes, he might do that. He was an easy speaker, and

The car drew up at the curb and the chauffeur got out. Natalie's car had drawn up just ahead, and the footman

was already opening the door. Rodney Page got out, and assisted Natalie to alight. Clayton smiled. So she

had changed her mind. He saw Rodney bend over her hand and kiss it after his usual ceremonious manner.

"There's nothing wrong, sir. I have been very well suited. It's only I used to be in the regular army, sir, and I

"There's no answer to that, Jackson," he said. But a sense of irritation stirred him as he went up the steps to

the house door. Jackson was a good man. Jackson and Klein, and who knew who would be next?

The winter which preceded the entrance of the United States into the war was socially an extraordinary one. It

was marked by an almost feverish gayety, as though, having apparently determined to pursue a policy

dictated purely by self interest, the people wished to forget their anomalous position. Like a woman who

covers her shame with a smile. The vast number of war orders from abroad had brought prosperity into

homes where it had long been absent. Mills and factories took on new life. Labor was scarce and high.

It was a period of extravagance rather than pleasure. Peaple played that they might not think. Washington,

convinced that the nation would ultimately be involved, kept its secret well and continued to preach a

neutrality it could not enforce. War was to most of the nation a great dramatic spectacle, presented to them at

breakfast and in the afternoon editions. It furnished unlimited conversation at dinnerparties, led to endless

wrangles, gave zest and point to the peace that made those dinner parties possible, furnished an excuse for

retrenchment here and there, and brought into vogue great bazaars and balls for the Red Cross and kindred

Life went on much as before. An abiding faith in the Allies was the foundation stone of its complacency. The

great sixmonths battle of the Somme, with its million casualties, was resulting favorably. On the east the

Russians had made some gains. There were wagers that the Germans would be done in the Spring.

But again Washington knew that the British and French losses at the Somme had been frightful; that the

amount of lost territory regained was negligible as against the territory still held; that the food problem in the

British Islands was acute; that the submarine sinkings were colossal. Our peace was at a fearful cost.

When Graham Spencer left the mill that Tuesday afternoon, it was to visit Marion Hayden. He was rather

bored now at the prospect. He would have preferred going to the Club to play billiards, which was his custom

of a late afternoon. He drove rather more slowly than was his custom, and so missed Marion's invitation to

Three cars before the house showed that she already had callers, and indeed when the parlormaid opened the

door a burst of laughter greeted him. The Hayden house was a general rendezvous. There were usually, by

seven o'clock, whiskeyandsoda glasses and teacups on most of the furniture, and halfsmoked cigarets on

"There are people in every room who want to be left alone," she volunteered. "I kept the library as long as I

Which they proceeded to do, quite amiably. From various open doors came subdued voices. The air was

pungent with tobacco smoke permeated with a faint scent of late afternoon highballs.

"Mother," Marion explained, "is getting awfully touchy about the piano. Well, do you remember half the

He looked up at her admiringly. He was only a year from college, and he had been rather arbitrarily limited to

the debutantes. He found, therefore, something rather flattering in the attention he was receiving from a girl

who had been out five years, and who was easily the most popular young woman in the gayer set. It gave him

a sense of maturity Since the night before he had been rankling under a sense of youth.

"But I found it very interesting. You know, I like business. And I like big figures. Poor people always do. Has

Encouraged by her interest, he elaborated on the new work. He even developed an enthusiasm for it, to his

own surprise. And the girl listened intently, leaning forward so that her arm brushed his shoulder. Her eyes,

slightly narrowed, watched him closely. She knew every move of the game she was determining to play.

Marion Hayden, at twentyfive, knew already what her little world had not yet realized, that such beauty as

she had had was the beauty of youth only, and that that was going. Late hours, golf, perhaps a little more

champagne than was necessary at dinners, and the mornings found her almost plain. And, too, she had the far

vision of the calculating mind. She knew that if the country entered the war, every eligible man she knew

At twentyfive she already noticed a change in the personnel of her followers. The unmarried men who had

danced with her during her first two winters were now sending flowers to the debutantes, and cutting in on

the younger men at balls. Her house was still a rendezvous, but it was for couples like the ones who had

preempted the drawingroom, the library and the music room that afternoon. They met there, smoked her

cigarets, made love in a corner, occasionally became engaged. But she was of the game, no longer in it.

Men still came to see her, a growing percentage of them married. They brought or sent her tribute, flowers,

candy, and cigarets. She was enormously popular at dances. But more and more her dinner invitations were

So she watched Graham and listened. He was a nice boy and a handsome one. Also he promised to be sole

"Imagine your knowing all those things," she said admiringly. "You're a partner, aren't you?"

"When you really get going, I wonder if you will take me round and show me how shells are made. I'm the

"Very well. For that promise you shall have a highball. You're an awful dear, you know."

She placed a slim hand on his shoulder and patted it. Then, leaning rather heavily on him for support, she got

"We'll go in and stir up some of the lovers," she suggested. "And if Tommy Hale hasn't burned up the piano

It was after seven when he reached home. He felt every inch a man. He held himself very straight as he

entered the house, and the boyish grin with which he customarily greeted the butler had given place to a

Natalie was in her dressingroom. At his knock she told the maid to admit him, and threw a dressinggown

over her bare shoulders. Then she sent the maid away and herself cautiously closed the door into Clayton's

"I've got the money for you, darling," she said. From her jewel case she took a roll of bills and held them out

"Never mind about taking it. Pay those bills before your father learns about them. That's all."

He was divided between gratitude and indignation. His newfound maturity seemed to be slipping from him.

"Honestly, mother, I'd rather go to father and tell him about it. He'd make a row, probably, but at least you'd

She ignored his protest, as she always ignored protests against her own methods of handling matters.

"I'm accustomed to it," was her sole reply. But her resigned voice brought her, as it always had, the ready

He sat down, still uneasily fingering the roll of bills. Just how far Natalie's methods threatened to undermine

his character was revealed when, at a sound in Clayton's room, he stuck the money hastily into his pocket.

"Not that. But he's different. Graham, your father thinks we may be forced into the war."

"Why, good heavens, mother," he began, "we should have been in it last May. We should "

"You wouldn't, Graham. You're all I have. All I have left to live for. You wouldn't need to go. It's ridiculous.

"He needs me the hell of a lot," the boy muttered. But he went over and, stooping down, kissed her trembling

"Don't worry about me," he said lightly. "I don't think we've got spine enough to get into the mixup,

When he hesitated she resorted to her old methods with both Clayton and the boy. She was doing all she

could to make them happy. She made no demands, none. But when she asked for something that meant more

than life to her, it was refused, of course. She had gone through all sorts of humiliation to get him that money,

Graham listened. She was a really pathetic fignre, crouched in her low chair, and shaken with terror. She

must have rather a bad time; there were so many things she dared not take to his father. She brought them to

him instead, her small grievances, her elaborate extravagances, her disappointments. It did not occur to him

that she transferred to his young shoulders many of her own burdens. He was only grateful for her

confidence, and a trifle bewildered by it. And she had helped him out of a hole just now.

"All right. I promise," he said at last. "But you're worrying yourself for nothing, mother."

She was quite content then, cheered at once, consulted the jewelled watch on her dressing table and rang for

"Heavens, how late it is!" she exclaimed. "Run out now, dear. And, Graham, tell Buckham to do up a dozen

dinnernapkins in paper. Audrey Valentine has telephoned that she has just got in, and finds she hasn't

Months afterward, Clayton Spencer, looking back, realized that the night of the dinner at the Chris Valentines

marked the beginning of a new epoch for him. Yet he never quite understood what it was that had caused the

change. All that was clear was that in retrospect he always commenced with that evening, when he was trying

to trace his own course through the months that followed, with their various changes, to the momentous ones

Everything pertaining to the dinner, save the food, stood out with odd distinctness. Natalie's silence during

the drive, broken only by his few questions and her brief replies. Had the place looked well? Very. And was

the planting going on all right? She supposed so. He had hesitated, rather discouraged. Then:

"I don't want to spoil your pleasure in the place, Natalie " he had said, rather awkwardly. "After all, you

She had appeared mollified at that and had relaxed somewhat. He fancied that the silence that followed was

no longer resentful, that she was busily planning. But when they had almost reached the house she turned to

"Please don't talk war all evening, Clay," she said. "I'm so ghastly sick of it."

"All right," he agreed amiably. "Of course I can't prevent the others doing it."

"It's generally you who lead up to it. Ever since you came back you've bored everybody to death with it."

He had a wretched feeling that she was probably right. He had come back so full of new impressions that he

had probably overflowed with them. It was a very formal, extremely tall and reticent Clayton Spencer who

Afterward he remembered that Audrey was not quite hernusual frivolous self that evening. But perhaps that

was only in retrospect, in view of what he learned later. She was very daringly dressed, as usual, wearing a

very low gown and a long chain and earrings of black opals, and as usual all the men in the room were

"Thank heaven for one dignified man," she exclaimed, looking up at him. "Clayton, you do give tone to my

It was not until they went in to dinner that he missed Chris. He heard Audrey giving his excuses.

"He's been called out of town," she said. "Clay, you're to have his place. And the flowers are low, so I can

There were a dozen guests, and things moved rapidly. Audrey's dinners were always hilarious. And Audrey

herself, Clayton perceived from his place of vantage, was flirting almost riotously with the man on her left.

She had two high spots of color in her cheeks, and Clayton fancied or was that in retrospect, too? that her

gayety was rather forced. Once he caught her eyes and it seemed to him that she was trying to convey

And then, of course, the talk turned to the war, and he caught a flash of irritation on Natalie's face.

"Ask the oracle," said Audrey's clear voice, "Ask Clay. He knows all there is to know."

"I can only give you my own opinion. Ten years if we don't go in. Possibly four if we do."

"I only gave an opinion," he protested. "One man's guess is just as good as another's. All I contend is that it is

going on to a finish. The French and English are not going to stop until they have made the Hun pay in blood

"I wish I were a man," Audrey said' suddenly. "I don't see how any man with red blood in his veins can sit

still, and not take a gun and try to stop it. Sometimes I think I'll cut off my hair, and go over anyhow. I've

only got one accomplishment. I can shoot. I'd like to sit in a tree somewhere and pick them off. The

There was a roar of laughter, not so much at the words as at the fierceness with which she delivered them.

Clayton, however, felt that she was in earnest and liked her the better for it. He surmised, indeed, that under

Audrey's affectations there might be something rather fine if one could get at it. She looked around the table,

"Look at us," she said. "Here we sit, overfed, overdressed. Only not overwined because I can't afford it.

And probably yes, I think actually every man at this table is more or less making money out of it all.

There's Clay making a fortune. There's Roddie, making money out of Clay. Here am I, serving Clayton's

cigarets I don't know why I pick on you, Clay. The rest are just as bad. You're the most conspicuous, that's

"I'm sure we all send money over," she protested. "To the Belgians and all that. And if they want things we

"Oh, yes, I know all that," Audrey broke in, rather wearily. "I know. We're the saviors of the Belgians, and

we've given a lot of money and shiploads of clothes. But we're not stopping the war. And it's got to be

Clayton watched her. Somehow what she had just said seemed to crystallize much that he had been feeling.

"Right, Audrey," he supported her. "I'd give up every prospect I have if the thing could be ended now."

He meant it then. He might not have meant it, entirely, tomorrow or the day after. But he meant it then. He

The talk veered then, but still focused on the war. It became abstract as was so much of the war talk in

America in 1916. Were we, after this war was over, to continue to use the inventions of science to destroy

mankind, or for its welfare? Would we ever again, in wars to come, go back to the comparative humanity of

the Hague convention? Were such wickednesses as the use of poison gas, the spreading of disease germs and

the killing of noncombatants, all German precedents, to inaugurate a new era of cruelty in warfare.

Was this the last war? Would there ever be a last war? Would there not always be outlaw nations, as there are

>From that to Christianity. It had failed. On the contrary, there was a great revival of religious faith. Creeds,

no. Belief, yes. Too many men were dying to permit the growth of any skepticism as to a future life. We must

In the midst of that discussion Audrey rose. Her color had faded, and her smile was gone.

"I won't listen any longer," she said. "I'm ready to talk about fighting, but not about dying."

Clayton was conscious that he had had, in spite of Audrey's speech about the wine, rather more to drink than

he should have. He was not at all drunk, but a certain excitement had taken the curb off his tongue. After the

departure of the women he found himself, rather to his own surprise, delivering a harangue on the Germans.

"Liars and cheats," he said. And was conscious of the undivided attention of the men. "They lied when they

sigued the Hague Convention; they lie when they claim that they wanted peace, not war; they lie when they

claim the misuse by the Allies of the Red Cross; they lie to the world and they lie to themselves. And their

Then, conscious that the table was eying him curiously, he subsided into silence.

"You're a dangerous person, Clay," somebody said. "You're the kind who develops a sort of general hate, and

will force the President's hand if he can. You're too old to go yourself, but you're willing to send a million or

"I've got a son," Clayton said sharply. And suddenly remembered Natalie. He would want to boast, she had

said, that he had a son in the army. Good God, was he doing it already? He subsided into the watchful silence

He took no liquor, and with his coffee he was entirely himself again. But he was having a reaction. He felt a

sort of contemptuous scorn for the talk at the table. The guard down, they were either mouthing flamboyant

patriotism or attacking the Government. It had done too much. It had done too little. Voices raised, faces

And the nation, he reflected, was like that, divided apparently hopelessly. Was there anything that would

unite it, as for instance France was united? Would even war do it? Our problem was much greater, more

complicated. We were of every race. And the country was founded and had grown by men who had fled from

the quarrels of Europe. They had come to find peace. Was there any humanitarian principle in the world

Clayton found Audrey in the ball as they moved at last toward the drawingroom. He was the last of the line

There was something wrong with Audrey. Her usual insouciance was gone, and her hands nervously fingered

"What I really want to do," she added, "is to scream. But don't look like that. I shan't do it. Suppose we go up

She was always a casual hostess. Having got her parties together, and having fed them well, she consistently

declined further responsibility. She kept open house, her side board and her servants at the call of her friends,

but she was quite capable of withdrawing herself, without explanation, once things were moving well, to be

found later by some one who was leaving, writing letters, fussing with her endless bills, or sending a check

she could not possibly afford to some one in want whom she happened to have heard about. Her popularity

Clayton was liking Audrey better that night than he had ever liked her, though even now he did not entirely

approve of her. And to the call of any woman in trouble he always responded. It occurred to him, following

her up the stairs, that not only was something wrong with Audrey, but that it was the first time he had ever

Chris's study was dark. She groped her way in and turned on the lamp, and then turned and faced him.

"I'm in an awful mess, Clay," she said. "And the worst of it is, I don't know just what sort of a mess it is."

He was terrified by her eyes. "Some aromatic ammonia." That was Natalie's cure for everything.

"I'm not going to faint. I never do. Close the door and sit down. And then give me a hundred dollars, if you

"Is that enough?" he asked. And drew out his black silk evening wallet, with its monogram in seed pearls. He

laid the money on her knee, for she made no move to take it. She sat back, her face colorless, and surveyed

"What a comfort you are, Clay," she said. "Not a word in question. Just like that! Yet you know I don't

"The only thing that is important is that I have the money with me. Are you sure it's enough?"

"Plenty. I'll send it back in a week or so. I'm selling this house. It's practically sold. I don't know why

anybody wants it. It's a poky little place. But well, it doesn't matter about the house. I called up some

people today who have been wanting one in this neighborhood and I'm practically sure they'll take it."

"We have separated, Clay. At least, Chris has gone. There's a long story behind it. I'm not up to telling it

tonight. And this money will end part of it. That's all I'm going to tell about the money. It's a small sum, isn't

"Oh, it isn't the money. That's a trifle. I just had to have it quickly. And when I learned I needed it of course

Clayton was puzzled and distressed. He had not liked Chris. He had hated his cynicism, his pose of

indifference. His very fastidiousness bad never seemed entirely genuine. And this going away and taking all

"Oh, no, he didn't steal anything. He's going to enlist in the Canadian army. Or he said so when he left."

"Look here, Audrey, you can't tell me only part of the story. Do you mean to say that Chris has had a

magnificent impulse and gone to fight? Or that he's running away from something?"

"Both," said Audrey. "I'll tell you this much, Clay. Chris has got himself into a scrape. I won't tell you about

that, because after all that's his story. And I'm not asking for sympathy. If you dare to pity me I'll cry, and I'll

"Because the only person it greatly concerned was myself. He didn't want to face me. The thing that is

driving me almost mad is that he may be killed over there. Not because I love him so much. I think you know

how things have been. But because he went to well, I think to reinstate himself in my esteem, to show me

"I've got to carry it right along, haven't I? You know how I've been about this war, Clay. I've talked and

talked about wondering how our men could stay out of it. So when the smash came, he just said he was

going. He would show me there was some good stuff in him still. You see, I've really driven him to it, and if

A surge of resentment against the absent man rose in Clayton Spencer's mind. How like the cynicism of

Chris's whole attitude that he should thrust the responsibility for his going onto Audrey. He had made her

unhappy while he was with her, and now his death, if it occurred, would be a horror to her.

"I don't knoe why I burden you with all this," she said, rather impatiently. "I daresay it is because I knew

you'd have the money. No, I don't mean that. I'd rather go to you in trouble than to any one else; that's why."

"Oh, I shall! Don't worry." But her attempt at gayety fell flat. She lighted a cigaret from the stand beside her

"What's happened to you?" she asked. "There's a change in you, somehow. I've noticed it ever since you came

home. You ought to be smug and contented, if any man should. But you're not, are you?"

"I'm working hard. That's all. I don't want to talk about myself," he added impatiently. "What about you?

"But, good heavens, Audrey! Chris has no right to cut off like this, and leave you. I don't know the story, but

at least he must support you. A man can't just run away and evade every obligation. I think I'll have to go

"No!" she said, bending forward. "Don't do that. He has had a bad scare. But he's had one decent impulse,

She placed the money on the stand, and rose. As she faced him, she impulsively placed her hands on his

"I wish I could tell you, Clay," she said, in her low, slightly husky voice, "how very, very much I admire you.

For an uneasy moment he thought she was going to kiss him. But she let her hands fall, and smiling faintly,

led the way downstairs. Once down, however, she voiced the under lying thought in her mind.

"If he comes out, Clay, he'll never forgive me, probably. And if he is if he doesn't, I'll never forgive myself.

But ten minutes later, with a man on either side of her, she was sitting at the piano with a cigaret tucked

behind her ear, looking distractingly pretty and very gay and singing a slightly indecorous but very witty little

Clayton Spencer, cutting in on the second rubber, wondered which of the many he knew was the real Audrey.

He wondered if Chris had not married, for instance, the girl at the piano, only to find she was the woman

upstairs. And he wondered, too, if that were true, why he should have had to clear out. So many men married

the sort Audrey had been, in Chris's little study, only to find that after all the thing they had thought they were

He missed her, somewhat later. She was gone a full half hour, and he fancied her absence had something to

Two things helped greatly to restore Clayton to a more normal state of mind during the next few days. One of

them undoubtedly was the Valentine situation. Beside Audrey's predicament and Chris's wretched endeavor

to get away and yet prove himself a man, his own position seemed, if not comfortable, at least tenable. He

would have described it, had he been a man to put such a thing into words, as that "he and Natalie didn't

There were times, too, during those next few days, when he wondered if he had not exaggerated their

incompatibility. Natalie was unusually pleasant. She spent some evening hours on the arm of his big chair,

talking endlessly about the Linndale house, and he would lean back, smiling, and pretend to a mad interest in

"Tell me," he said once, "what does a fellow wear in this er Italian palace? If you have any intention of

draping me in a toga and putting vine leaves in my hair, or whatever those wreaths were made of !"

Natalie had no sense of humor, however. She saw that he meant to be amusing, and she gave the little fleeting

"Of course," he went on, "we'll have Roman baths, and be anointed with oil afterwards by lady Greek slaves.

While there was actually no change in their relationship, which remained as it had been for a dozen years,

their surface life was pleasanter. And even that small improvement cheered him greatly. He was thankful for

The other was his work. The directorate for the new munition plant had been selected, and on Thursday of

that week he gave a dinner at his club to the directors. It had been gratifying to him to find how easily his past

reputation carried the matter of the vast credits needed, how absolutely his new board deferred to his

judgment. The dinner became, in a way, an ovation. He was vastly pleased and a little humbled. He wanted

terribly to make good, to justify their faith in him. They were the big financial men of his time, and they were

When the dinner was over, a few of the younger men were in no mood to go home. They had dined and

wined, and the night was young. Denis Nolan, who had been present as the attorney for the new concern,

"Oh, go home, you fellows," he said at last. "You make me sick. Enough's enough. Why the devil does every

In the end, however, both he and Clayton went along, Clayton at least frankly anxious to keep an eye on one

or two of them until they started home. He had the usual standards, of course, except for himself. A man's

private life, so long as he was not a bounder, concerned him not at all. But this had been his dinner. He meant

to see it through. Once or twice he had seen real tragedy come to men as a result of the recklessness of long

Afterward they went to a midnight roofgarden, and at first it was rather dreary. Their youth was only

comparative after all, and the eyes of the girls who danced and sang passed over them, to rest on boys in their

"Pathetic!" he said. "The saddest sight in the world! Every one of you here would at this moment give up

"Of course, there are compensations," he drawled. "At twenty you want to take the entire bunch home and

keep 'em. At thirty you know you can't, but you still want to. At forty and over you don't want them at all, but

Clayton had watched the scene with a rather weary interest. He was, indeed, trying to put himself in Graham's

place, at Graham's age. He remembered once, at twenty, haying slipped off to see "The Black Crook," then

the epitome of wickedness, and the disillusionment of seeing women in tights with their accentuated curves

and hideous lack of appeal to the imagination. The caterers of such wares had learned since then. Here were

soft draperies instead, laces and chiffons. The suggestion was not to the eyes but to the mind. How devilishly

Perhaps there were some things he ought to discuss with Graham. He wondered how a man led up to such a

"I've been watching for a girl," he said, "but I don't see her. Last time I was here I came with Chris. She was

"Yes. It stumped me, at first. She came and sat with us, not a bad little thing, but Good Lord, Clay, ignorant

and not even pretty! And Chris was fastidious, in a way. I don't understand it."

The ancient perplexity of a man over the sex selections of his friends puckered his forehead.

A great wave of pity for Audrey Valentine surged in Clayton Spencer's heart. She had known it, of course;

that was why Chris had gone away. How long had she known it? She was protecting Chris's name, even now.

For all her frivolity, there was something rather big in Audrey. The way she had held up at her dinner, for

instance and he rather fancied that the idea of his going into the army had come from her, directly or

indirectly. So Chris, from being a fugitive, was already by way of being a hero to his friends.

He ordered them on his way downtown, and for some curious reason she was in his mind most of the day.

Chris had been a fool to throw away a thing so worth having. Not every man had behind him a woman of

That afternoon, accompanied by a rather boyishly excited elderly clergyman, he took two hours off from the

The rector was divided between pleasure at the gift and apprehension at its cost, but Clayton, having

"Nonsense," he said. "My dear man, the church has owed you this car for at least ten years. If you get half the

pleasure out of using it that I'm having in presenting it to you, it will be well worth while. I only wish you'd

Doctor Hayerford insisted that he could manage that. He stood off, surveying with pride not unmixed with

fear its bright enamel, its leather linings, the complicated system of dials and bright levers which filled him

"Delight says I must not drive it," he said. "She is sure I would go too fast, and run into things. She is going

"I wish you could see her, Clayton. She well, all young girls are lovely, but sometimes I think Delight is

lovelier than most. She is much older than I am, in many ways. She looks after me like a mother. But she has

humor, too. She has been drawing the most outrageous pictures of me arrested for speeding, and she has

"They give one lesson, I believe. That's not enough. I think Graham could show her some things. He drives

Flying uptown a little later in Clayton's handsome car, the rector dreamed certain dreams. First his mind went

to his parish visiting list, so endless, so never cleaned up, and now about to be made a pleasure instead of a

penance. And into his mind, so strangely compounded of worldliness and spirituality, came a further dream

of Delight and Graham Spencer of ease at last for the girl after the struggle to keep up appearances of a

Money had gradually assumed an undue importance in his mind. Every Sunday, every service, he dealt in

money. He reminded his people of the church debt. He begged for various charities. He tried hard to believe

that the money that came in was given to the Lord, but he knew perfectly well that it went to the janitor and

the plumber and the organist. He watched the offertory after the sermon, and only too often as he stood

waiting, before raising it before the altar, he wondered if the people felt that they had received their money's

He had started life with a dream of service, but although his own sturdy faith persisted, he had learned the

cost of religion in dollars and cents. So, going up town, he wondered if Clayton would increase his church

"After all," he reflected, "war is not an unmixed evil," and outlined a sermon, to be called the Gains of War,

and subsequently reprinted in pamphlet form and sold for the benefit of the new altar fund. He instructed

Jackson to drive to the parish house instead of to the rectory, so that he might jot down the headings while

they were in his mind. They ran like this: Spiritual growth; the nobility of sacrifice; the pursuit of an ideal;

"I daresay we shall be in frequent difficulties with that new car of ours, Jackson," he said genially. "I may

have to ask you to come round and explain some of its mysterious interior to me."

In the back of his mind the rector had been depending on Jackson, and he felt vaguely irritated.

"I sometimes think," observed the rector, still ruffled, "that a man's duty is not always what it appears on the

surface. To keep Mr. Spencer er comfortable, while he is doing his magnificent work for the Allies, may

"That's a matter for a man's conscience, isn't it, sir?" he asked. And touching his cap again, moved off. Doctor

Haverford felt reproved. Worse than that, he felt justly reproved. He did not touch the Gains of War that

In the gymnasium he found Delight, captaining a basketball team. In her knickers and middy blouse she

looked like a little girl, and he stood watching her as, flushed and excited, she ran round the long room. At

"Not at all. A very handsome car." He told her the make, and she flushed again with pleasure.

"He'll be bored to insanity. That's all. You you didn't suggest it, did you, daddy?"

With all her adoration of her father, Delight had long recognized under his real spirituality a certain quality of

worldly calculation. That, where it concerned her, it was prompted only by love did not make her acceptance

"Graham's changed, you know. He used to be a nice little kid. But he's I don't know what it is. Spoiled, I

"Don't get any queer ideas about Graham Spencer and me, Daddy," she said. "In the first place, I intend to

choose my own husband. He's to look as much as possible like you, but a trifle less nose. And in the second

place, after I've backed the car into a telegraph pole; and turned it over in a ditch, Graham Spencer is just

"Anyhow, I wouldn't trust him with the communion service," she added, and walking out onto the floor, blew

shrilly on her whistle. The rector watched her with growing indignation. These snap judgments of youth! The

easy damning of the young! They left no room for argument. They condemned and walked away, leaving

And Delight, having gone so far, went further. She announced that evening at dinner that she would under no

circumstances be instructed by Graham Spencer. Her mother ventured goodhumored remonstrance.

"The way to learn to drive a car," said Delight, "is to get into it and press a few things, and when it starts,

And when Clayton, calling up with his usual thoughtfulness that evening, offered Graham as instructor, she

"You're a dear to think of it," she said, "and you're a dear to have given Daddy the car. But I'm just naturally

Natalie, gathering her refusal from Clayton's protest, had heaved a sigh of relief. Not that she objected to

Delight Haverford. She liked her as much as she liked and understood any young girl, which was very little.

But she did not want Graham to marry. To marry would be to lose him. And again, watching Clayton's

Nevertheless, Delight received a lesson in driving from Graham, and that within two days.

On Saturday afternoon, finding the mill getting on his nerves, Clayton suggested to Graham what might be

the last golf of the autumn and Graham consented cheerfully enough. For one thing, the offices closed at

noon, and Anna Klein had gone. He was playing a little game with Anna a lighthearted matter of a glance

now and then caught and held, a touched hand, very casually done, and an admiring comment now and then

on her work. And Anna was blossoming like a flower. She sat up late to make fresh white blouses for the

office, and rose early to have abundance of time to dress. She had taken to using a touch of rouge, too,

although she put it on after she reached the mill, and took it off before she started for home.

Her father, sullen and irritable these days, would have probably beaten her for using it.

But Anna had gone, and a telephone call to Marion Hayden had told him she was not at home. He thought it

possible she had gone to the country club, and accepted his father's suggestion of golf willingly.

>From the moment he left the mill Anna had left his mind. He was at that period when always in the back of

his mind there was a girl. During the mill hours the girl was Anna, because she was there. In the afternoon it

was Marion, just then, but even at that there were entire evenings when, at the theater, a pretty girl in the

chorus held and absorbed his entire attention or at a dance a debutante, cloudy and mysterious in white

On this foundation of girl he built the superstructure of his days. Not evil, but wholly irresponsible. The urge

of vital youth had caught him and held him. And Clayton, sitting that day beside him in the car, while

Graham drove and the golf clubs rattled in their bags at his feet, remembered again the impulses of his own

adolescence, and wondered. There had been a time when he would have gone to the boy frankly, with the

anxieties he was beginning to feel. There were so many things he wanted to tell the boy. So many warnings

But Natalie had stolen him. That was what it amounted to. She had stolen his confidence, as only a selfish

woman could. And against that cabal of mother and son he felt helpless. It was even more than that. As

against Natalie's indulgence he did not wish to pose as a mentor pointing out always the way of duty.

"Twentytwo." Graham glanced at him curiously. His father knew his age, of course.

"Tough luck," said Graham. And then: "I'm sorry, father, I didn't mean that. But it's pretty early, isn't it? No

"I fancy Nature meant men to marry young, don't you? It saves a lot of complications."

"The girl a fellow marries at that age isn't often the one he'd marry at thirty," said Graham. And feeling that

he had said the wrong thing, changed the subject quickly. Clayton did not try to turn it back into its former

channel. The boy was uncomfortable, unresponsive. There was a barrier between them, of selfconsciousness

On the way over they had sighted Delight in the new car. She had tried to turn, had backed into a ditch and

was at that moment ruefully surveying a machine which had apparently sat down on its rear wheels with its

"Of course it would have to be you," she said. "Of all the people who might have seen my shame I'm going

It was not until the car was out of the ditch, and Clayton had driven off in Graham's car toward the club that

Delight remembered her father's voice the day he had told her Graham would teach her to drive. She stiffened

and he was quick to see the change in her manner. The total damage was one flat tire, and while the engine

was inflating it, he looked at her. She had grown to be quite pretty. His eyes approved her.

"What's the matter with me, Delight? You're not exactly crazy about me, are you?"

"That's your fault. You know I've been away for four years, and since I came back I haven't seen much of

"You're being awfully nasty, you know. Here I come to pull you out of a ditch and generally rescue you, and

"I don't know, Graham," she said truthfully. "I only know well, I hear things, of course. Nothing very bad.

Just little things. I wish you wouldn't insist. It's idiotic. What does it matter what I think?"

Graham flushed. He knew well enough one thing she had heard. Her father and mother had been at dinner the

He stopped the pump and put away the tools, all in silence. Good heavens, was all the world divided into two

sorts of people: the knockers and under that heading he placed his father, Delight, and all those who

occasionally disapproved of him and the decent sort who liked a fellow and understood him?

But his training had been too good to permit him to show his angry scorn. He made an effort and summoned

"All ready," he said. "And since you won't let me teach you, perhaps I'd better take you home."

But she insisted that he drive them both to the club, and turn the car round there. Then, with a grinding of

gear levers that made him groan, she was off toward home, leaving Graham staring after her.

And wounded in all the pride of new manhood, he joined Marion and her rather riotous crowd around the fire

inside the clubhouse. Clayton had given him up and was going around alone, followed by a small caddie. The

links were empty, and the caddie lonely. He ventured small bits of conversation now and then, looking up

with admiration at Clayton's tall figure. And, after a little, Clayton took the bag from him and used him only

"Oh, he has, has he?" Clayton built a small tee, and placed his ball on it. "Well, maybe we'll all be going

He drove off and started after the ball. It was not until he was on the green that he was conscious of the boy

"How old d'you have to be to get into the army, Mr. Spencer?" inquired the caddie, anxiously.

"Afraid you'll have to wait a while," said Clayton and achieved a wellnigh perfect long putt.

"I'd just like to get a whack at them Germans," offered the boy, and getting no response, trudged along again

Suddenly it struck Clayton as rather strange that, in all the time since his return from Europe, only four

people had shown any but a sort of academic interest in the war, and that, ironically enough, a German had

been the first to make a sacrifice for principle. Chris had gone, to get out of trouble. The little caddie wanted

to go, to get a "whack" at the madmen of Europe. And Jackson, the chauffeur, was going, giving up his

excellent wages to accept the thirtyodd dollars a month of a noncom, from a pure sense of responsibility.

But, among the men he knew best, in business and in the clubs, the war still remained a magnificent

Suddenly Clayton saw Audrey Valentine. She was swinging toward him, her bag with its clubs slung over her

shoulder, her hands in the pockets of an orangecolored sweater. In her black velvet tam and short skirt she

had looked like a little girl, and at first he did not recognize her. She had seen him, however, and swung

"Hello, Clay," she called, when they were within hailing distance. "Bully shot, that last."

"I didn't want one. I had a feeling that, if I took one, and he lost a ball in these impecunious times of mine, I'd

Under her rakish cap her eyes were rather defiant. She did not want pity; she almost dared him to pity her.

"I'm off my game today. I'll wander along, if you don't mind. I'll probably sneeze or something when you're

"Nothing," he said, gravely approaching his ball, "so adds distance to my drive as a good explosive sneeze

They talked very little. Audrey whistled as she walked along with the free swinging step that was

characteristic of her, and Clayton was satisfied merely to have her companionship. She was not like some

women; a man didn't have to be paying her compliments or making love to her. She even made no comments

"Very good," she said gravely. "I am only surprised when you do a thing badly. Not when you do it well."

He rather wondered if she thought Natalie was one of the things he managed badly.

The sense of companionship warmed him. Although neither of them realized it, their mutual loneliness and

dissatisfaction had brought them together, and mentally at least they were clinging, each desperately to the

And, a hundred yards or so further on, "They wouldn't have Chris in Canada. His heart. He's going into the

"It's done me a lot of good, meeting you, Clay. There's something so big and solid and dependable about you.

I wonder I suppose you don't mind my using you as a sort of anchor to windward?"

"You don't have to do a thing." She smiled up at him, and her old audacity was quite gone. "You've just got to

be. And you don't have to send me flowers, you know. I mean, I understand that you're sorry for me,

without that. You're the only person in the world I'd allow to be sorry for me."

He was touched. There was no coquetry in her manner. She paid her little tribute quite sincerely and frankly.

"I've been taking stock today," she went on, "and I put you among my assets. One reliable gentleman, six

feet tall, weight about a hundred and seventy, in good condition. Heavens, what a lot of liabilities you had to

"Audrey dear," he said, "what am I to say to all that? What can I do? How can I help?"

As they approached the clubhouse they saw Graham and Marion Hayden standing outside. Graham was

absently dropping balls and swinging at them. It was too late when Clayton saw the danger and shouted

All through that night Clayton and Audrey Valentine sat by the boy's white bed in the hospital. Clayton knew

Graham was waiting outside, but he did not go out to speak to him. He was afraid of himself, afraid in his

Early in the evening Natalie had come, in a great eveningcoat that looked queerly out of place, but she had

come, he knew, not through sympathy for the thin little figure on the bed, but as he had known she would

come, to plead for Graham. And her cry of joy when the surgeons had said the boy would live was again for

She had been too engrossed to comment on Audrey's presence there, and Audrey had gone out immediately

and left them together. Clayton was forced, that night, to an unwilling comparison of Natalie with another

woman. On the surface of their lives, where only they met, Natalie had always borne comparison well. But

here was a new standard to measure by, and another woman, a woman with hands to serve and watchful,

Not that Clayton knew all this. He felt, in a vague way, that Natalie was out of place there, and he felt, even

more strongly, that she had not the faintest interest in the still figure on its white bed save as it touched

He was resentful, too, that she felt it necessary to plead with him for his own boy. Good God, if she felt that

She had placed a hand on Clayton's arm, as he sat in that endless vigil, and bent down to whisper, although no

"It was an accident, Clay," she pled. "You know Graham's the kindest soul in the world. You know that,

"Then I'd rather he had been, Natalie. If he drove that ball out of wanton indifference "

"I told him you'd be hard," she said. "He's outside, halfsick with fright, because he is afraid. Afraid of you,"

She had gone away soon after that, the nurse informed him. And toward dawn Clayton left Audrey in the sick

room and found Graham. He was asleep in a chair in the waitingroom, and looked boyish and very tired.

Some time later he roused from a doze in his chair. Graham was across the bed from him, looking down.

Joey lay still, his eyes taking in his new surroundings. Then he put out a hand and touched the bandage on his

Graham caught his father's eyes across the bed, and smiled a shaky, tremulous smile.

"I guess he's all right, Father," he said. And suddenly crumpled up beside the bed, and fell into a paroxysm of

silent sobbing. With his arm around the boy's shoulders, Clayton felt in that gray dawn the greatest

thankfulness of his life. Joey would live. That cup was taken from his boy's lips. And he and Graham were

together again, close together. The boy's grip on his hand was tight. Please God, they would always be

Clayton did not care to tell Natalie of Chris's flight. She would learn it soon enough, he knew, and he felt

unwilling to discuss the affair as Natalie would want to discuss it. Not that he cared about Chris, but he had

begun to feel a protective interest in Audrey Valentine, an interest that had in it a curious aversion to hearing

He and Natalie met rarely in the next few days. He dined frequently at his club with men connected in various

ways with the new enterprise, and transacted an enormous amount of business over the dinner or luncheon

table. Natalie's door was always closed on those occasions when he returned, and he felt that with the

stubbornness characteristic of her she was still harboring resentment against him for what he had said at the

He knew she was spending most of her days at Linndale, and he had a vague idea that she and Rodney

together had been elaborating still further on the plans for the house. It was the furtiveness of it rather than

the fact itself that troubled him. He was open and straightforward himself. Why couldn't Natalie be frank with

It was Mrs. Haverford, punctually paying her dinnercall in an age which exacts dinnercalls no longer

even from its bachelors who brought Natalie the news of Chris's going. Natalie, who went down to see her

with a mental protest, found her at a drawingroom window, making violent signals at somebody without,

"It's Delight," explained Mrs. Haverford. "She's driving me round. She won't come in, and she's forgotten her

Natalie was well, and said so. She was conscious that Mrs. Haverford was listening with only half an ear, and

"Natalie!" she cried. "Do come and watch. She's turning the car. We do think she drives wonderfully. Only a

"What in the world has Graham got to do with it?" Natalie's voice was faintly scornful.

"They met once since Clayton gave Doctor Haverford the car. Graham helped her when she had got into a

"That would imply a degree of intimacy that hardly exists, does it?" Natalie said, sharply.

But Mrs. Haverford had not fought the verbal battles of the parish for twenty years in vain.

"He is quite well again," Natalie said impatiently "I can not understand the amount of fuss every one makes

over the boy. He ran in front of where Graham was driving and got what he probably deserved."

"How like dear Clayton!" breathed Mrs. Haverford, and counted the honors as hers. But she had not come to

quarrel. She had had, indeed, a frankly benevolent purpose in coming, and she proceeded to carry it out at

"I do think, my dear," she said, "that some one ought to tell Audrey Valentine the stories that are going

"What has she been doing?" Natalie asked, with her cool smile. "There is always some story about Audrey,

isn't there?" "Do you mean to say you haven't heard?" "I don't hear much gossip."

"You know how rabid she has been about the war. Well, the story is," she went on, with a certain unction,

"that she has driven Chris to enlisting in the Foreign Legion, or something. Anyhow, he sailed from Halifax

"It's town talk, my dear. Doctor Haverford spoke to Clayton about it some days ago. He rather gathered

That, too, was like dear Clayton, Natalie reflected bitterly. He had told her nothing. In her heart she added

"Personally, I imagine they were heavily in debt," Mrs. Haverford went on. "They had been living beyond

their means, of course. I like Mrs. Valentine, but I do think, to drive a man to his death, or what may be his

"I don't believe it. I don't believe he went to fight, anyway. He was probably in some sort of a scrape."

Natalie's impulse of sympathy toward Audrey was drowned in her rising indignation. That all this could

"Nobody has. I do think she might have seen her clergyman. There is a time when only the church can give

"It's rather likely he would. They were golfing together, weren't they, when that caddie was hurt?"

Natalie was not a jealous woman. She had, for years, taken Clay's faithfulness for granted, and her own

complacency admitted no chance of such a possibility. But she was quick to realize that she had him at a

"How long have you known it?" she asked him that night, when, after the long dinner was over, she sat with

He was tired and depressed, and his fine face looked drawn. But he roused and smiled across at her. He had

begun to have a feeling that he must make up to Natalie for something he hardly knew for what.

"She had to, in a way. I'm sure she'll tell you herself. She's been rather hiding away, I imagine."

"If you want the exact truth, she borrowed a small sum from me, as the banks were closed, naturally. There

"A very small amount, my dear. Don't look like that, Natalie. She knew I generally carried money with me."

"Oh, I'm not jealous! Audrey probably thinks of you as a sort of grandfather, anyhow. It's not that. It is your

But Natalie was jealous. She had that curious jealousy of her friends which some women are cursed with, of

being first in their regard and their confidence. A slow and smoldering anger against Audrey, which had

Her indignation against Clayton took the form of calculation; and she was quick to pursue her advantage. In

"Roddie says he has tried to call you at the mill, but you are always out of your office. So he sent these

True to the resolution he had made that night in the hospital, he went over them carefully. And even their

magnitude, while it alarmed him, brought no protest from him. After all the mill and the new plant were his

toys to play with. He found there something to fill up the emptiness of his life. If a great house was Natalie's

ambition, if it gave her pleasure and something to live for, she ought to have it.

She had prepared herself for a protest, but he made none, even when the rather startling estimate was placed

"I just want you to be happy, my dear," he said. "But I hope you'll arrange not to run over the estimate. It is

being pretty expensive as it is. But after all, success doesn't mean anything, unless we are going to get

They were closer together that evening than they had been for months. And at last he fell to talking about the

mill. Natalie, curled up on the chaise longue in her boudoir, listened attentively, but with small

comprehension as he poured out his dream, for himself now, for Graham later. A few years more and he

would retire. Graham could take hold then. He might even go into politics. He would be fifty then, and a man

of fifty should be in his prime. And to retire and do nothing was impossible. A fellow went to seed.

Eyes on the wood fire, he talked on until at last, roused by Natalie's silence, he glanced up. She was sound

Some time later, in his dressinggown and slippers, he came and roused her. She smiled up at him like a

"You've been awfully dear about the house," she said. And standing on tiptoe, she kissed him on the cheek.

"Perhaps it is. But I try good God, Natalie, I do try. He needs a curb now and then. All boys do. But if we

could only agree on it don't you see how it is now?" he asked, trying to reason gently with her. "All the

discipline comes from me, all the indulgence from you. And I don't want to lose my boy, my dear."

"So we couldn't even have one happy evening!" she said. "I won't quarrel with you, Clay. And I won't be

She went into her bedroom, the heavy lace of her negligee trailing behind her, and closed the door.

Clayton had a visitor the next morning at the mill, a man named Dunbar, who marked on his visitors' slip,

under the heading of his business with the head of the concern, the words, "Private and confidential."

Clayton, looking up, saw a small man, in a suit too large for him, and with ears that projected wide on either

Even through the closed window the noise of the mill penetrated. The yardengine whistled shrilly. The

clatter of motortrucks, the far away roar of the furnaces, the immediate vicinity of many typewriters, made a

very bedlam of sound. Mr. Dunbar drew his chair closer, and laid a card on the desk.

"I had expected to. Not that I fear anything, but of course no one can tell. We have barely commenced to get

Clayton told him, with an uneasy feeling that Mr. Dunbar was finding them childish and inefficient.

"Exactly," said his visitor. "And well enough as far as they go. They don't go far enough. The trouble with

you manufacturers is that you only recognize one sort of trouble, and that's a strike. I suppose you know that

the Kaiser has said, if we enter the war, that he need not send an army here at all. That his army is here

Mr. Dunbar reached into his breast pocket, and produced a long typed memorandum.

Clayton read it carefully. It was a list of fires, mostly in granaries and warehouses, and the total loss was

"All German work," said his visitor. "Arson, for the Fatherland. All supplies for the Allies, you see. I've got

other similar lists, here, all German deviltry. And they're only commencing. If we go into the war "

The immediate result of the visit was that Clayton became a member of a protective league which undertook,

with his cooperation, to police and guard the mill. But Mr. Dunbar's last words left him thinking profoundly.

"We're going to be in it, that's sure. And soon. And Germany's army is here. It's not only Germans either. It's

the I.W.W., for one thing. We've got a list through the British postoffice censor, of a lot of those fellows

who are taking German money today. They're against everything. Not only work. They're against law and

"We haven't a great many. We've had no trouble. One man resigned a boss roller. That's all."

"He's been here a long time. I haven't an idea he'd do us any harm. It was a matter of principle with him."

"Oh, it's a matter of principle with all of them. They can justify themselves seven ways to the ace. Keep an

Clayton sat for some time after Dunbar had gone. Was it possible that Klein, or men like Klein, old

employees and faithful for years, could be reached by the insidious wickedness of Germany? It was

incredible. But then the whole situation was incredible; that a peaceful and homeloving people, to all

appearances, should suddenly shed the sheep skin of years of dissimulation, and appear as the wolves of the

One of his men had died on the Lusitania, a quiet little chap, with a family in the suburbs and a mania for

raising dahlias. He had been in the habit of bringing in his best specimens, and putting them in water on

Then his mind went back to Herman Klein. He had a daughter in the mill. She was earning the livelihood for

the family now, temporarily. And the Germans were thrifty. If for no other reason he thought Klein would not

There was a good bit of talk about German hate, but surely there was no hate in Klein.

"We've got to get wise, and soon. It's too big a job for the regular departments to handle. Every city in the

country and every town ought to have a civilian organization to watch and to fight it if it has to. They're

hiding among us everywhere, and every citizen has got to be a sleuth, if we're to counter their moves. Every

He had smiled as he said it, but Clayton had surmised a great earnestness and considerable knowledge behind

Delight Haverford was to come out in December, but there were times when the Doctor wondered if she was

really as keen about it as she pretended to be. He found her once or twice, her usually active hands idle in her

"What awful crime have you been committing? Break it to me gently. You know my weak heart."

"Your tobacco heart!" she said, severely. "Well, I've been committing a mental murder, if you want to know

But' behind her smile he felt a real hurt. He would have given a great deal to have taken her in his arms and

tried to coax out her trouble so he might comfort her. But that essential fineness in him which his worldliness

only covered like a veneer told him not to force her confidence. Only, he wandered off rather disconsolately

to hunt his pipe and to try to realize that Delight was now a woman grown, and liable to woman's

"What do you think it is?" he asked that night, when after her nightly custom Mrs. Haverford had reached

over from the bed beside his and with a single competent gesture had taken away his book and switched off

his reading lamp, and he had, with the courage of darkness, voiced a certain uneasiness.

"If it had only been a nice girl," Mrs. Haverford protested, plaintively. "But Toots! She's fast, I'm sure of it."

"And that boy needs a decent girl, if anybody ever did. A shallow mother, and a moneymaking father all

Toots Hay den wants is his money. She's ages older than he is. I hear he is there every day and all of

The rector had precisely as much guile as a turtle dove, and long, after Mrs. Haverford gave unmistakable

evidences of slumber, he lay with his arms above his head, and plotted. He had no conscience whatever about

it. He threw his scruples to the wind, and if it is possible to follow the twists of a theological mind turned

from the straight and narrow way into the maze of conspiracy, his thoughts ran something like this:

"She is Delight. Therefore to see her is to love her. To see her with any other girl is to see her infinite

Therefore, on the following Sunday afternoon, the totally unsuspecting daughter of a good man gone wrong

took a note from the rector to the Hayden house, about something or other of no importance, and was

instructed to wait for an answer. And the rector, vastly uneasy and rather pleased with himself, took refuge in

Delight herself was totally unsuspicious. The rectory on a Sunday afternoon was very quiet, and she was glad

to get away. She drove over, and being in no hurry she went by the Spencer house. She did that now and then,

making various excuses to herself, such as liking the policeman at the corner or wanting to see the river from

the end of the street. But all she saw that day was Rodney Page going in, in a top hat and very bright gloves.

But she felt a little thrill, as she always did, when she passed the house. Since she could remember she had

cared for Graham. She did not actually know that she loved him. She told herself bravely that she was

awfully fond of him, and that it was silly, because he never would amount to anything. But she had a little

argument of her own, for such occasions, which said that being really fond of any one meant knowing all

She stopped the car at the Hayden house, and carried her note to the door. When she went in, however, she

was instantly uncomfortable. The place reeked with smoke, and undeniably there was dancing going on

somewhere. A phonograph was scraping noisily. Delight's small nose lifted a little. What a deadly place!

Coming in from the fresh outdoors, the noise and smoke and barroom reek stifled her.

"How providential, Delight!" she said. "You'll take my hand, won't you? It's Graham's dummy, and we want

The two connecting rooms were full of people, and the air was heavy. Through the haze she saw Graham, and

nodded to him, but with a little sinking of the heart. She was aware, however, that he was looking at her with

a curious intentness and a certain expectancy. Maybe he only hoped she would let him dance with Toots.

"Three good reasons: I don't play cards on Sunday; I don't ever play for money; and I'm stifling for breath

There was, had she only seen it, relief in Graham's face. She did not belong there, he felt. Delight was well,

she was different. He had not been thinking of her before she came in; he forgot her promptly the moment she

went out. But she had given him, for an instant, a breath of the fresh outdoors, and quietness and perhaps

There was an insistent clamor that she stay, and Tommy Hale even got down on his knees and made a quite

"You are all very nice," she said. "But I'm sure I'd bore you in a minute, and I'm certain you'd bore me.

But there was nothing of Delight of the high head when she got out of her car and crept up the rectory steps.

How could she even have cared? How could she? That was his life, those were the people he chose to play

The rector, tapping at her door a little later, received the answer to his note through a very narrow crack, and

Clayton had been watching with growing concern Graham's intimacy with the gay crowd that revolved

around Marion Hayden. It was more thoughtless than vicious; more pleasureseeking than wicked; but its

But he was very busy. At night he was too tired to confront the inevitable wrangle with Natalie that any

protest about Graham always evoked, and he was anxious not to disturb the new rapprochement with the boy

The middle of December, which found the construction work at the new plant well advanced, saw the social

season definitely on, also, and he found himself night after night going to dinners and then on to balls. There

were fewer private dances than in previous Winters, but society had taken up various war activities and made

On these occasions he found himself watching for Audrey, always. She had, with a sort of diabolical

cleverness, succeeded in losing herself. Her house was sold, he knew, and he had expected that she would let

him know where to find her. She had said she counted on him, and he had derived an odd sort of comfort

from the thought. It had warmed him to think that, out of all the people he knew, to one woman he meant

But although he searched the gayest crowds with his eyes, those hilarious groups of which she had been so

frequently the center, he did not find her. And there had been no letter save a brief one without an address,

enclosing her check for the money she had borrowed. She had apparently gone, not only out of her old life,

At one of the great charity balls he met Nolan, and they stood together watching the crowd.

"Pretty expensive, I take it," Nolan said, indicating the scene. "Orchestra, florist, supper I wonder how

"Precisely. But would you send the money? We've got to have a quid pro quo, you knowmost of us." He

surveyed the crowd with cynical, dissatisfied eyes. "At the end of two years of the war," he observed, apropos

of nothing, "five million men are dead, and eleven million have been wounded. A lot of them were doing this

"Some of us won't be here. Have you seen Lloyd George's speech on the German peace terms? That means

going on to the end. A speedy peace might have left us out, but there will be no peace. Not yet, or soon."

"The English tradition persists," said the Irishman, bitterly. "We want to wait, and play to the last moment,

and then upset our business and overthrow the whole country, trying to get ready in a hurry.

"I wonder what they will do, when the time comes, with men like you and myself?"

"Take our money," said Nolan viciously. "Tax our heads off. Thank God I haven't a son."

He pursued the subject further, going into an excited account of Ireland's grievances. He was flushed and

loquacious. He quoted Lloyd George's "quagmire of distrust" in tones raised over the noise of the band. And

Clayton was conscious of a growing uneasiness. How much of it was real, how much a pose? Was Nolan

representative of the cultured Irishman in America? And if he was, what would be the effect of their

antiEnglish mania? Would we find ourselves, like the British, split into factions? Or would the country be

drawn together by trouble until it changed from a federation of states to a great nation, united and unbeatable?

Were we really the melting pot of the world, and was war the fiery furnace which was to fuse us together, or

were there elements, like Nolan, like the GermanAmericans, that would never fuse?

He left Nolan still irritable and explosive, and danced once with Natalie, his only dance of the evening. Then,

He had a vague sense of disappointment, a return of the critical mood of the early days of his return from

France. He went to his room and tried to read, but he gave it up, and lay, cigaret in hand, thinking!

There ought to have come to a man, when he reached the middle span, certain compensations for the things

that had gone with his youth, the call of adventure, the violent impulses of his early love life. There should

come, to take their place, friends, a new zest in the romance of achievement, since other romance had gone,

and peace. But the peace of the middle span of life should be the peace of fulfillment, and of a home and a

Natalie was not happy, but she seemed contented enough. Her life satisfied her. The new house in the

daytime, bridge, the theater in the evening or the opera, dinners, dances, clothes they seemed to be enough

for her. But his life was not enough for him. What did he want anyhow? In God's name, what did he want?

One night, impatient with himself, he picked up the book of love lyrics in its mauve cover, from his bedside

table. He read one, then another. He read them slowly, engrossingly. It was as though something starved in

him was feeding eagerly on this poor food. Their passion stirred him as in his earlier years he had never been

stirred. For just a little time, while Natalie danced that night, Clayton Spencer faced the tragedy of the man in

his prime, still strong and lusty with life, with the deeper passions of the deepening years, who has outgrown

Natalie, coming in much later and seeing his light still on, found him sleeping, with one arm under his head,

and a small black hole burned in the monogrammed linen sheet. The book of poems had slipped to the floor.

The next day she missed it from its place, and Clayton's man, interrogated, said he had asked to have it put

away somewhere. He did not care for it. Natalie raised her eyebrows. She had thought the poems rather

One resolution Clayton made, as a result of that night. He would not see Audrey again if he could help it. He

was not in love with her and he did not intend to be. He was determinedly honest with himself. Men in his

discontented state were only too apt to build up a dreamwoman, compounded of their own starved fancy,

and translate her into terms of the first attractive woman who happened to cross the path. He was not going to

be a driveling idiot, like Chris and some of the other men he knew. Things were bad, but they could be much

It happened then that when Audrey called him at the mill a day or so later it was a very formal voice that

"That means yes, you know. But I'm going even further. I'm coming down to see you."

"Don't be so urgent," she said gayly. "I want to consult you. That's all. May I come?"

That "nothing to do" was an odd change, in itself, for Audrey had been in the habit of doling out her time like

"Where in the world have you been all this time?" he demanded, almost angrily. To his own surprise he was

suddenly conscious of a sense of indignation and affront. She had said she depended on him, and then she had

"Just getting acquainted with myself," she replied, with something of her old airy manner. "Goodby."

His irritation passed as quickly as it came. He felt calm and very sure of himself, and rather lighthearted.

Joey, who was by now installed as an office adjunct, and who commonly referred to the mill as "ours," heard

Clayton was not in the habit of paying afternoon calls on women. The number of such calls that he had paid

without Natalie during his married life could have been numbered on the fingers of his two hands. Most of

the men he knew paid such visits, dropping in somewhere for tea or a highball on the way uptown. He had

He wondered if he should call Natalie and tell her. But he decided against it. It was possible, for one thing,

that Audrey still did not wish her presence in town known. If she did, she would tell Natalie herself. And it

was possible, too, that she wanted to discuss Chris, and the reason for his going.

He felt a real sense of relief, when at last he saw her, to find her looking much the same as ever. He hardly

knew what he had expected. Audrey, having warned him as to the apartment, did not mention its poverty

again. It was a tiny little place, but it had an open fire in the livingroom, and plain, paleyellow walls, and

she had given it that curious air of distinction with which she managed, in her casual way, to invest

"I hope you observe how neat I am," she said, as she gave him her hand. "My rooms, of course."

He towered in the low room. Audrey sat down and surveyed him as he stood by the fire.

"Do you mean to say you have been living here, without even visitors, for two months?"

"Stenography. Oh, it's not as bad as that. I don't have to earn my living. I've just got to do something for my

soul's sake. I went all over the ground, and I saw I was just a cumberer of the earth, and then I thought "

"If, some time or other, I could release a man to go and fight, it would be the next best thing to giving myself.

Not here, necessarily; I don't believe we will ever go in. But in England, anywhere."

He waited, hoping she would go on. He was not curious, but he thought it might be good for her to talk Chris

and the trouble over with some one. But she sat silent, and suddenly asked him if he cared for tea. He refused.

"Clay," she said, after a moment, "are you going to employ women in the new munition works?"

"None of them are. We have to teach them. I can give you a card to the employment department if you want

There was a short silence. She sat looking at the fire, and he had a chance to notice the change in her. She had

visualized it herself. Her long earrings were gone, and with them some of the insolence they had seemed to

accentuate. She was not rouged, and he had thought at first, for that reason, that she looked ill. She was even

differently dressed, in something dark and girlish with a boyish white Eton collar.

"Paying my bills! That's not all the truth, either. I'll tell you, Clay. I just got sick of it all. When Chris left I

had a chance to burn my bridges and I burned them. The same people, the same talk, the same food, the same

days filled with the same silly things that took all my time and gave me nothing."

"Yes. He's in a dangerous place now, and sometimes at night I suppose I did force him, in a way. He was

doing no good here, and I thought he would find himself over there. But I didn't send him. He Tell me

He was a little bit disappointed. Evidently she did not depend on him enough to tell him Chris's story. But

He told her about the mill, phrasing his explanation in the simplest language; the presses drilling on

whitehot metal; the great anvils; the forge; the machineshop, with its lathes, where the rough surfaces of

the shells were first roughturned and then machined to the most exact measurements. And finding her

interested, he told her of England's women workers, in their khakicolored overalls and caps, and of the

conventlike silence and lack of movement in the fillingsheds, where one entered with rubbershod feet,

and the women, silent and intent, sat all day and all night, with queer veils over their faces, filling shells with

"Lady! How oldfashioned you are! There are no ladies any more. Just women. And if we aren't measured by

our usefulness instead of our general notworthadamnness, well, we ought to be. Oh, I've had time to

He was hardly listening. Seeing her, after all those weeks, had brought him a wonderful feeling of peace. The

little room, with its fire, was cozy and inviting. But he was quite sure, looking down at her, that he was not in

danger of falling in love with her. There was no riot in him, no faint stirring of the emotions of that hour with

There was no suspicion in him that the ways of love change with the years, that the passions of the forties,

when they come, are to those of the early years as the deep sea to a shallow lake, less easily roused, infinitely

"Yes." She hesitated. "I could have asked you that over the telephone, couldn't I? The plain truth is that I've

had two bad months never mind why, and Christmas was coming, and I just wanted to see your perfectly

"I was getting settled, and studying, and learning to knit, and oh, I'm the most wretched knitter, Clay! I just

stick at it doggedly. I say to myself that hands that can play golf, and use a pen, and shoot, and drive a car,

She held up a forlorn looking sock to his amused gaze. "And I think I'm a clever woman."

"You're a very brave woman, Audrey," he said. "You'll let me come back, won't you?"

"Heavens, yes. Whenever you like. And I'm going to stop being a recluse. I just wanted to think over some

On the way home he stopped at his florist's, and ordered a mass of American beauties for her on Christmas

morning. She had sent her love to Natalie, so that night he told Natalie he had seen her, and such details of

"I'm glad she's coming to her senses," Natalie said. "Everything's been deadly dull without her. She always

made things go I don't know just how," she added, as if she had been turning her over in her mind. "What

"Good gracious, she must be changed," said Natalie. And proceeded she was ready to go out to dinner to

one of her long and critical surveys of herself in the cheval mirror. Recently those surveys had been rather

getting on Clayton's nerves. She customarily talked, not to him, but to his reflection over her shoulder, when,

"I wonder," she said, fussing with a shoulderstrap, "who Audrey will marry if anything happens to Chris?"

"You needn't scowl like that. He's quite as likely as not never to come back, isn't he? And Audrey didn't care

"Oh, you're not," she retorted. "You think just the same things as I do, but you're not so open about them.

Graham was engaged. He hardly knew himself how it had come about. His affair with Marion had been, up to

the very moment of his blurted out "I want you," as lighthearted as that of any of the assorted young

The crowd which frequented the Hayden home was gay, tolerant and occasionally nasty. It made ardent love

semipromiscuously, it drank rather more than it should, and its desire for a good time often brought it rather

close to the danger line. It did not actually step over, but it hovered gayly on the brink.

And Toots remained highpriestess of her little cult. The men liked her. The girls imitated her. And Graham,

young as he was, seeing her popularity, was vastly gratified to find himself standing high in her favor.

Marion was playing for the stake of the Spencer money. In her intimate circle every one knew it but Graham.

She knew only one way to handle men, and with the stake of the Spencer money she tried every lure of her

experience on Graham. It was always Marion who on cold nights sat huddled against him in the back seat of

the Hayden's rather shabby car, her warm ungloved hand in his. It was Marion who taught him to mix the

newest of cocktails, and who later praised his skill. It was Marion who insisted on his having a third, too,

The effect on the boy of her steady propinquity, of her constant caressing touches, of the general

lettingdown of the bars of restraint, was to rouse in him impulses of which he was only vaguely conscious,

and his proposal of marriage, when it finally came, was by nature of a confession. He had kissed her, not for

the first time, but this time she had let him hold her, and he had rained kisses on her face.

And even afterward, when the thing was done, and she had said she would marry him, she had to ask him if

He wanted to marry her at once. It was the strongest urge of his life, and put into his pleading an almost

It was not a part of Marion's program to enter the Spencer family unwelcomed. She had a furtive fear of

Clayton Spencer, the fear of the indirect for the direct, of the designing woman for the essentially simple and

open male. It was not on her cards to marry Graham and to try to live on his salary.

So for a few weeks the engagement was concealed even from Mrs. Hayden, and Graham, who had received

some stock from his father on his twentyfirst birthday, secretly sold a few shares and bought the

Her methods were the methods of her kind and her time. To allure a man by every wile she knew, and having

won him to keep him uncertain and uneasy, was her perfectly simple creed. So she reduced love to its

cheapest terms, passion and jealousy, played on them both, and made Graham alternately happy and

Once he found Rodney Page there, lounging about with the manner of a habitue. It seemed to Graham that he

was always stumbling over Rodney those days, either at home, with drawings and color sketches spread out

"What's he hanging around here for?" he demanded when Rodney, having bent over Marion's hand and

kissed it, had gone away. "If he could see that bare spot on the top of his head he'd stop all that kowtowing."

"You're being rather vulgar, aren't you?" Marion had said. "He's a very old friend and a very dear one."

He had expected denial from her, but she had held her cigaret up in the air, and reflectively regarded its small

"Look here, Toots," he burst out. "I'm playing square with you. I never go anywhere but here. I I'm

perfectly straight with you. But every time here I find some of your old guard hanging round. It makes me

"They've always come here, and as long as our engagement isn't known, I can't very well stop them."

"He'll turn you out, you know. I know men, dear old thing, and father is going to raise a merry little hell

about us. He's the sort who wants to choose his son's wife for him. He'd like to play Providence." She

watched him, smiling, but with slightly narrowed eyes. "I rather think he has somebody in mind for you

"Delight. She's exactly the sort be thinks you'll need. He still thinks you are a little boy, Graham, so he picks

The amused contempt in her voice made him angry for Delight rather than himself. He was extremely

grownup and dignified the rest of the afternoon; he stood very tall and straight, and spoke in his deepest

It became rather an obsession in him to prove his manhood, and added to that was the effect of Marion's

constant, insidious appeal to the surging blood of his youth. And, day after day, he was shut in his office with

He thought he was madly in love with Marion. He knew that he was not at all in love with Anna Klein. But

He was often aware, sitting at his desk, with Anna before him, notebook in hand, that while he read his letters

her eyes were on him. More than once he met them, and there was something in them that healed his

wounded vanity. He was a man to her. He was indeed almost a god, but that he did not know. In his present

Then, one day he kissed her. She was standing very close, and the impulse was quick and irresistible. She

It was almost an exact reversal of his relationship with Marion. There the huskiness was his, the triumphant

smile was Marion's. And the feeling of being adored without stint or reservation warmed him.

He released her then, but their relationship had taken on a new phase. He would stand against the outer door,

to prevent its sudden opening. And she would walk toward him, frightened and helpless until his arms closed

about her. It was entirely a game to him. There were days, when Marion was trying, or the work of his

department was nagging him, when he scarcely noticed her at all. But again the mischief in him, the idler, the

newly awakened hunting male, took him to her with arms outheld and the look of triumph in his eyes that she

On one such occasion Joey came near to surprising a situation, so near that his sophisticated young mind

He waited until Graham had joined the office force in the mill lunchroom, and invented an errand back to

Graham's office. Anna was there, powdering her nose with the aid of a mirror fastened inside her purse.

Joey had adopted Clayton with a sort of fierce passion, hidden behind a pose of patronage.

"He's all right," he would say to the boys gathered at noon in the mill yard. "He's kinda shorttempered

sometimes, but me, I understand him. And there ain't many of these here money kings that would sit up in a

The mill yard had had quite enough of that night in the hospital. It would fall on him in one of those

halfplayful, halfvicious attacks that are the humor of the street, and sometimes it was rather a battered Joey

But it was a very cool and slightly scornful Joey who confronted Anna that noon hour. He lost no time in

They spoke the same language. Anna knew what was coming, and was on guard instantly.

"What are you going to get out of it, anyhow?" he said with a shift from bullying to argument.

"Now see here, Joey," she said. "You run out and play. I'll not have any little boys meddling in my affairs."

Joey slid off the desk and surveyed her with an impish smile. "Your affairs!" he repeated. "What the hell do I

care about your affairs? I'm thinking of the boss. It's up to him if he wants to keep German spies on the place.

But it's up to some of us here to keep our eyes open, so that they don't do any harm."

Sheer outrage made Anna's face pale. She had known for some time that the other girls kept away from her,

and she had accepted it with the stolidity of her blood. She had no German sympathies; her sympathies in the

"You get out of here," she said furiously, "or I'll go to Mr. Spencer and complain about you. I'm no more a

spy than you are. Not as much! the way you come sneaking around listening and watching! Now you get

And Joey had gone, slowly to show that the going was of his own free will, and whistling. He went out and

"You be good," he volunteered, "and when the little old U.S. gets to mixing up with the swine over there, I'll

Two days before Christmas Delight came out. There was an afternoon reception at the rectory, and the plain

For weeks before the house had been getting ready. The rector, looking about for his accustomed chair, had

been told it was at the upholsterer's, or had found his beloved and ragged old books relegated to dark corners

of the bookcases. There were always stepladders on the landings, and paperhangers waiting until a man got

out of bed in the morning. And once he put his ecclesiastical heel in a pail of varnish, and slid down an entire

But he had consented without demur to the comingout party, and he had taken, during all the morning of the

great day, a most mundane interest in the boxes of flowers that came in every few minutes. He stood inside a

window, under pretense of having no place to sit down, and called out regularly,

"Six more coming, mother! And a boy with three ringing across the street. I think he's made a mistake. Yes,

When all the stands and tables were overflowing, the bouquets were hung to the curtains in the windows. And

"It's heavenly," she said. "Imagine all those flowers for me. It looks" she squinted up her eyes critically

But a part of her satisfaction was pure pose, for the benefit of that kindly pair who loved her so. Alone in her

room, dressed to go downstairs, Delight drew a long breath and picked up her flowers which Clayton

Spencer had sent. It had been his kindly custom for years to send to each little debutante, as she made her

"Fifty dollars, probably," Delight reflected. "And the Belgians needing flannels. It's dreadful."

Her resentment against Graham was dying. After all, he was only a child in Toots Hayden's hands. And she

made one of those curious "Helovesmehelovesmenot" arrangements in her own mind. If Graham

came that afternoon, she would take it as a sign that there was still some good in him, and she would try to

A great many came, mostly women, with a sprinkling of men. The rector, who loved people, was in his

element. He was proud of Delight, proud of his home; he had never ceased being proud of his wife. He knew

who exactly had sent each basket of flowers, each hanging bunch. "Your exquisite orchids," he would say; or,

But when Natalie Spencer came in alone, splendid in Russian sables, he happened to be looking at Delight,

Natalie had tried to bring Graham with her. She had gone into his room that morning while he was dressing

and asked him. To tell the truth, she was uneasy about Marion Hayden and his growing intimacy there.

"It's so silly, Graham. She's older than you are. And she's not really nice, Graham. I don't mean anything

horrid, but she's designing. She knows you are young and well, she's just playing with you. I know girls,

She was really frightened. Bills for flowers sent to Marion were coming in, to lie unpaid on Graham's writing

table. She had overdrawn once again to pay them, and other bills, for theater tickets, checks signed at

So she went to the Haverfords alone, and managed very effectually to snub Mrs. Hayden before the rector's

"If it were not for Natalie Spencer," she said, following that lady's sables with malevolent eyes, "I should be

And Doctor Haverford had followed her uneasily, behind some palms. She was a thin little woman with a

maddening habit of drawing her tight veil down even closer by a contortion of her lower jaw, so that the

"I want you to know right away, as Marion's clergyman, and ours," she had said, and had given her jaw a

particularly vicious wag and twist. "Of course it is not announced I don't believe even the Spencers know it

yet. I am only telling you now because I know how dearly" she did it again "how dearly interested you

The rector had not been a shining light for years without learning how to control his expression. He had a

Mrs. Hayden had lowered her voice still more. The revelation took on the appearance of conspiracy.

"In the early spring, probably," she said, "we shall need your services, and your blessing."

So that was the end of one dream. He had dreamed so many in his youth, of spiritualizing his worldly flock;

in middle life, of a bishopric; he had dreamed of sons, to carry on the name he had meant to make famous.

But the failures of those dreams had been at once his own failure and his own disappointment. This was

He was profoundly depressed. He wandered out of the crowd and, after colliding with a man from the

caterer's in a dark rear hall, found his way up the servant's staircase to the small back room where he kept the

lares and penates of his quiet life, his pipe, his fishing rods, a shabby old smoking coat, and back files of

The little room was jammed with old furniture, stripped from the lower floor to make room for the crowd. He

had to get down on his knees and crawl under a table to reach his pipe. But he achieved it finally, still with an

air of abstraction, and lighted it. Then, as there was no place to sit down, he stood in the center of the little

He did not go down again. He heard the noise of the arriving and departing motors subside, its replacement

by the sound of clattering china, being washed below in the pantry. He went down finally, to be served with a

meal largely supplemented by the leftovers of the afternoon refreshments, ornate salads, fancy ices, and an

overwhelming table decoration that shut him off from his wife and Delight, and left him in magnificent

Bits of the afternoon's gossip reached him; the comments on Delight's dress and her flowers; the reasons

certain people had not come. But nothing of the subject nearest his heart. At the end of the meal Delight got

"I'm going to call up Mr. Spencer," she said. "He has about fifty dollars' worth of thanks coming to him."

"He couldn't come because he had enough to do being two places at once. His mother said he was working,

and Mrs. Hayden said he had taken Marion to the Country Club. I don't know why they take the trouble to lie

Christmas day of the year of our Lord, 1916, dawned on a world which seemed to have forgotten the Man of

Peace. In Asia Minor the Allies celebrated it by the capture of a strong Turkish position at Maghdadah. The

Germans spent it concentrating at Dead Man's Hill; the British were ejected from enemy positions near Arras.

Germany, conscious of her superiority in men, and her hypocritical peace offers unanimously rejected, was

preparing to free herself from the last restraint of civilization and to begin unrestricted submarine warfare.

On Christmas morning Clayton received a letter from Chris. Evidently it had come by hand, for it was mailed

"Dear Clay: I am not at all sure that you will care to hear from me. In fact, I have tried two or three times to

write to you, and have given it up. But I am lonelier than Billybedamned, and if it were not for Audrey's

"I don't know whether you know why I got out, or not. Perhaps you don't. I'd been a fool and a scoundrel, and

I've had time, between fusses, to know just how rotten I've been. But I'm not going to whine to you. What I

"God only knows why I am writing to you, anyhow unless it is because I've always thought you were pretty

near right. And I'd like to feel that now and then you are seeing Audrey, and bucking her up a bit. I think she's

"Do you know, Clay, I think this is a darned critical time. The press, hasn't got it yet, but both the British and

the French are hard up against it. They'll fight until there is no one left to fight, but these damned Germans

seem to have no breakingpoint. They haven't any temperament, I daresay, or maybe it is soul they lack. But

they'll fight to the last man also, and the plain truth is that there are too many of them.

"It looks mighty bad, unless we come in. And I don't mind saying that there are a good many eyes over here

straining across the old Atlantic. Are we doing anything, I wonder? Getting ready? The officers here say we

can't expand an army to get enough men without a draft law. Can you see the administration endangering the

"I'm on the wagon, Clay. Honestly, it's funny. I don't mind telling you I'm darned miserable sometimes. But

then I get busy, and I'm so blooming glad in a rush to get water that doesn't smell to heaven that I don't want

"I suppose they'll give us a good hate on Christmas. Well, think of me sometimes when you sit down to

dinner, and you might drink to our coming in. If we have a principle to divide among us we shall have to."

He and Natalie lunched alone, Natalie in radiant good humor. His gift to her had been a high collar of small

diamonds magnificently set, and Natalie, whose throat commenced to worry her, had welcomed it

rapturously. Also, he had that morning notified Graham that his salary had been raised to five thousand

"I daresay I won't earn it, Father," he had said. "But I'll at east try to keep out of debt on it."

The boy had flushed. Then he had disappeared, as usual, and Clayton and Natalie sat across from each other,

in their higharmed lion chairs, and made a pretense of Christmas gayety. True to Natalie's sense of the

fitness of things, a small Nuremberg Christmas tree, hung with tiny toys and lighted with small candles, stood

"It's very pretty," Clayton acknowledged. And he wondered if Natalie felt at all as he did, the vast room and

the two men serving, with Graham no one knew where, and that travesty of Christmas joy between them. His

"It's not so very long since we had a real tree," he observed. "Do you remember the one that fell and smashed

"Horribly messy things," said Natalie, and watched the second man critically. He was new, and she decided

She chattered through the meal, however, with that light gayety of hers which was not gayety at all, and

"The diningroom floor is to be oak, with a marble border," she said. "You remember the ones we saw in

There was claret with the luncheon, and Clayton, raising his glass, thought of Chris and the water that

"An upstairs loggia, too," she said. "Bordered with red geraniums. I loathe geraniums, but the color is good.

"I think you're a better judge than I am," he replied, smiling. He had had to come back a long way, but he

"It's hardly worth while struggling to have things attractive for you," she observed petulantly. "You never

notice, anyhow. Clay, do you know that you sit hours and hours, and never talk to me?"

"I'll talk to you, my dear. But I'm not much good at houses. Give me something I understand."

"When you talk at all. What in the world do you think about, Clay, when you sit with your eyes on nothing?

That afternoon Natalie slept, and the house took on the tomblike quiet of an establishment where the first

word in service is silence. Clay wandered about, feeling an inexpressible loneliness of spirit. On those days

which work did not fill he was always discontented. He thought of the club, but the vision of those

disconsolate groups of homeless bachelors who gathered there on all festivals that centered about a family

All at once, he realized that, since he had wakened that morning, he had been wanting to see Audrey. He

wanted to talk to her, real talk, not gossip. Not country houses. Not personalities. Not recrimination. Such

talk as Audrey herself had always led at dinner parties: of men and affairs, of big issues, of the war.

Natalie was still sleeping when he went downstairs. It had been raining, but a cold wind was covering the

pavement with a glaze of ice. Here and there men in top hats, like himself, were making their way to

Christmas calls. Children clinging to the arms of governesses, their feet in high arctics, slid laughing on the

ice. A belated florist's wagon was still delivering Christmas plants tied with bright red bows. The street held

more of festivity to Clayton than had his house. Even the shop windows, as he walked toward Audrey's

unfashionable new neighborhood, cried out their message of peace. Peace when there was no peace.

"I was hoping you would come, Clay," she said. "I've had some visitors, but they're gone. I'll tell them

She read it slowly, and he was surprised, when she finally looked up, to find tears in her eyes.

"Poor old Chris!" she said. "I've never told you the story, have I, Clay? Of course I know perfectly well I

haven't. There was another woman. I think I could have understood it, perhaps, if she had been a different

sort of a woman. But I suppose it hurt my pride. I didn't love him. She was such a vulgar little thing. Not

"He was fastidious, too. I don't understand it. And he swears he never cared for her. I don't believe he did,

either. I suppose there's no explanation for these things. They just happen. It's the life we live, I dare say.

"Now and then. She has fastened herself on me, in a way. Don't scowl like that. She says she is straight now

and that she only wants a chance to work. She's off the stage for good. She danced. That money I got from

you was for her. She was waiting, upstairs. Chris was behind with her rent, and she was going to lose her

"That you should have to do such a thing!" he protested. "It's well, it's infamous."

"Well, I've never been particularly shielded. It hasn't hurt me. I don't even hate her. But I'm puzzled

sometimes. Where there's love it might be understandable. Most of us would hate to have to stand the test of

real love, I daresay. There's a time in every one's life, I suppose, when love seems to be the only thing that

"Even you, Clay," she reflected, smilingly. "You big, grave men go all to pieces, sometimes."

"There," she said. "I've had my little whimper, and I feel better. Now talk to me."

The little clock was striking six when at last he rose to go. The room was dark, with only the glow of the

wood fire on Audrey's face. He found her very lovely, rather chastened and subdued, but much more

She got up and stood on the hearthrug beside him, looking up at him. Then, "Don't be startled, Clay," she

And kiss him she did, putting both hands on his shoulders, and rising on her toes to do it. It was a very small

kiss, and Clayton took it calmly, and as she intended him to take it. But it was, at that, rather a flushed

Clayton took away with him from that visit a great peace and a great relief. He had talked out to her for more

than an hour of the many things that puzzled and bewildered him. He had talked war, and the mill, and even

Graham and his problems. And by talking of them some of them had clarified. A little of his unrest had gone.

He felt encouraged, he had a new strength to go on. It was wonderful, he reflected, what the friendship of a

He turned toward home reluctantly. Behind him was the glow of Audrey's fire, and the glow that had been in

He went into his great, silent house, and the door closed behind him like a prison gate.

For a long time after he had gone, Audrey, doors closed to visitors, sat alone by her fire, with one of his roses

In her small upper room, in a white frame cottage on the hill overlooking the Spencer furnaces, Anna Klein,

locked away from prying eyes, sat that same Christmas evening and closely inspected a tiny gold

Having turned Dunbar and his protective league over to Hutchinson, the general manager, Clayton had put

him out of his mind. But during the week after Christmas he reached the office early one morning to find that

Not precisely waiting, for he was standing by one of the windows, well back from it, and inspecting the mill

"Hello, Dunbar," said Clayton, and proceeded to shed his furlined coat. Dunbar turned and surveyed him

"Cold morning," he said, coming forward. "Not that I suppose you know it." He glanced at the coat.

>From inside his coat he produced a small leather case, and took from it a number of photographs.

"I rather gathered, Mr. Spencer," he said dryly, "when I was here last that you thought me an alarmist. I don't

know that I blame you. We always think the other fellow may get it, but that we are safe. You might glance at

He spread them out on the desk. Beyond the windows the mill roared on; men shouted, the locomotive

whistled, a long file of laborers with wheelbarrows went by. And from a new building going up came the

hammering of the rivetingmachines, so like the rapid explosions of machine guns.

"Interesting, aren't they?" queried Dunbar. "This is a clockbomb with a strap for carrying it under a coat.

That's a lump of coal only it isn't. It's got enough explosive inside to blow up a battleship. It's meant for

that, primarily. That's fireconfetti damnable stuff understand it's what burned up most of Belgium. And

that's a fountainpen. What do you think of that? Use one yourself, don't you? Don't leave it lying around.

"One of their best little tricks," said Mr. Dunbar, with a note of grudging admiration in his voice. "Here's a

cut of the mechanism. You sit down, dip your pen, and commence to write. There's the striking pin, or

"I mean to say they're planning to, if they haven't already. That coal now, you'd see that go into your

furnaces, or under your boilers, or wherever you use it, and wouldn't worry, would you?"

"Made from articles taken from a German officer's trunk, in a neutral country. He was on his way

Clayton sat silent. Then he took out his fountainpen and surveyed it with a smile.

"Rather off fountainpens for a time, I take it!" observed Dunbar. "Well, I've something else for you. You've

got one of the best little I.W.W. workers in the country right here in your mill. Some of them aren't so bad

hot air and nothing else. But this fellow's a fanatic. Which is the same as saying he's crazy."

"Name's Rudolph Klein. He's a sort of relation to the chap that got out. Old man's been sore on him, but I

"I don't remember him. Of course, I can't keep track of the men. We'll get rid of him."

"Nine of you men out of ten say that. You'd turn him loose and so warn him. Not only that, but he'll be off on

his devil's work somewhere. Perhaps here. Perhaps elsewhere. And we want him where we can find him. See

"Set a spy to watch a spy," said Dunbar. "Let him think he's going on fine. Find his confederates. Let them

get ready to spring something. And then get them. Remember," he added with sarcasm, "we're still neutral.

You can't lock a man up because he goes around yelling 'Down with capital!' The whole country is ready to

yell it with him. And, even if you find him with a bomb under his coat, labeled 'made in Germany,' it's hard to

link Germans up with the thing. He can say that he always buys his bombs in Germany. That they make the

best bombs in the world. That he likes the way they pack 'em, and their polite trade methods."

Dunbar hesitated. He liked Clayton Spencer, and it was his business just then to know something about the

Kleins. It would be a good thing for Clayton Spencer's boy if they got rid of the girl.

On the other hand, to keep her there and watch her was certainly a bigger thing. If she stayed there might be

trouble, but it would concern the boy only. If she left, and if she was one link in the chain to snare Rudolph,

"Keep her, by all means," he said. "And don't tell Mr. Graham anything. He's young, and he'd be likely to

"I'm inclined to think there's nothing to that end of it," he said. "The old chap is sulky, but he's not dangerous.

At the luncheon hour that day Clayton, having finished his mail, went to Graham's office. He seldom did that,

but he was uneasy. He wanted to see the girl. He wanted to look her over with this new idea in his mind. She

had been a quiet little thing, he remembered; thorough, but not brilliant. He had sent her to Graham from his

own office. He disliked even the idea of suspecting her; his natural chivalry revolted from suspecting any

Joey, who customarily ate his luncheon on Clayton's desk in his absence, followed by one of Clayton's

cigarets, watched him across the yard, and whistled as he saw him enter Graham's small building.

"Well, what do you think of that?" he reflected. "I hope he coughs before he goes in.

But Clayton did not happen to cough. Graham's office was empty, but there was a sound of voices from Anna

Klein's small room beyond. He crossed to the door and opened it, to stand astonished, his hand on the

Anna Klein was seated at her desk, with her luncheon spread before her on a newspaper, and seated on the

desk, a sandwich in one hand, the other resting on Anna's shoulder, was Graham. He was laughing when

"Yes," said Clayton, curtly. And went out, leaving the door open. A sort of stricken silence followed his exit,

then Graham put down the sandwich and went out, closing the door behind him. He stood just inside it in the

The boy was silent. To Clayton he looked furtive, guilty. His very expression condemned him far more than

the incident itself. And Clayton, along with his anger, was puzzled as to his best course. Dunbar had said to

leave the girl where she was. But was it feasible under these circumstances? He was rather irritated than

angry. He considered a flirtation with one's stenographer rotten bad taste, at any time. The business world, to

his mind, was divided into two kinds of men, those who did that sort of thing, and those who did not. It was a

Besides, he had bad a surprise. The girl who sat laughing into Graham's face was not the Anna Klein he

remembered, a shy, drab little thing, badly dressed, rather sallow and unsmiling. Here was a young woman

undeniably attractive; slightly rouged, trim in her white blouse, and with an air of piquancy that was added,

"Get your hat and go to lunch, Graham," he said. "And you might try to remember that a slightly different

standard of conduct is expected from my son, here, than may be the standard of some of the other men."

Then he went out, and Graham returned unhappily to the inner room. Anna was not crying; she was too

frightened to cry. She had sat without moving, her hand still clutching her untouched sandwich. Graham

"Don't you worry about that," he said, with boyish bravado. "Don't you worry about that, little girl."

"Father will kill me," she whispered. "He's queer these days, and if I go home and have to tell him " She

She glanced up at him with that look of doglike fidelity that always touched him.

"Something good," she repeated, with sudden bitterness. "And you'll get another girl here, and flirt with her,

Frightened though he was, her wretchedness appealed to him. The thought that she cared for him, too, was a

salve to his outraged pride. A moment ago, in the other room, he had felt like a bad small boy. As with

Marion, Anna made him feel every inch a man. But she gave him what Marion did not, the feeling of her

The gay and fashionable crowd of which Audrey had been the center played madly that winter. The short six

weeks of the season were already close to an end. By midJanuary the south and California would have

claimed most of the women and some of the men. There were a few, of course, who saw the inevitable

catastrophe: the Mackenzies had laid up their houseboat on the west coast of Florida. Denis Nolan had let

his little place at Pinehurst. The advance wave of the war tide, the increased cost of living, had sobered and

made thoughtful the middle class, but above in the great businesses, and below among the laboring people,

And Audrey Valentine's world missed her. It refused to accept her poverty as an excuse, and clamored for

her. It wanted her to sit again at a piano, somewhere, anywhere, with a lighted cigaret on the musicrack, and

sing her husky, naive little songs. It wanted her cool audacity. It wanted her for weekend parties and bridge,

and to canter on frosty mornings on its best horses and make slaves of the park policemen, so that she might

jump forbidden fences. It wanted to see her oust its grinning chauffeurs, and drive its best cars at their best

And Audrey was not cut out for solitude. She did not mind poverty. She found it rather a relief to

acknowledge what had always been the fact. But she did mind loneliness. And her idea of making herself

over into something useful was not working out particularly well. She spent two hours a day, at a downtown

school, struggling with shorthand, and her writingtable was always littered with papers covered with queer

Clayton Spencer met her late in December, walking feverishly along with a book under her arm, and a

halfdesperate look in her eyes. He felt a little thrill when he saw her, which should have warned him but did

"Take it!" she said. "I've thrown it away twice, and two wretched men have run after me and brought it back."

"Certainly I can spell," she said with dignity. "I'm a very good speller. Clay, there isn't an "i" in business, is

"It is generally considered necessary to have two pretty good eyes in business." But he saw then that she was

really rather despairing. "There is, one 'i,'" he said. "It seems foolish, doesn't it? Audrey dear, what are you

"It isn't that. I have enough. Honestly, Clay, I just had some sort of an idea that I'd been playing long enough.

But I'm only good for play. That man this morning said as much, when we fussed about my spelling. He said

Clayton threw back his head and laughed, and after a moment she laughed, too. But as he went on his face

was grave. Somebody ought to be looking after her. It was not for some time that be realized he carried the

absurd little spellingbook. He took it back to the office with him, and put it in the back of a drawer of his

desk. Joey, coming in some time later, found him, with the drawer open, and something in his hands which he

hastily put away. Later on, Joey investigated that drawer, and found the little book. He inspected it with a

Rodney had had a prosperous year, and for some time his conscience had been bothering him. For a good

many years he had blithely accepted the invitations of his friends dinners, balls, weekend and yachting

parties, paying his way with an occasional box of flowers. He decided, that last winter of peace, to turn host

"Why don't you turn your carriagehouse into a studio, and give a studio warming, Roddie? It would be fun

Before long, of course, he had accepted the idea as of his own originating, and was hard at work.

Rodney's house had been his father's. He still lived there, although the business district had encroached

closely. And for some time he had used the large stable and carriagehouse at the rear as a place in which to

store the odd bits of furniture, old mirrors and odds and ends that he had picked up here and there. Now and

then, as to Natalie, he sold some of them, but he was a collector, not a merchant. In his way, he was an artist.

In the upper floor he had built a skylight, and there, in odd hours, he worked out, in watercolor, sketches of

interiors, sometimes for houses he was building, sometimes purely for the pleasure of the thing.

The war had brought him enormous increase in his collection. Owners of French chateaus, driven to poverty,

were sending to America treasures of all sorts of furniture, tapestries, carpets, old fountains, porcelains, even

carved woodwork and ancient mantels, and Rodney, from the mixed motives of business and pride, decided

The old brick floor of the stable he replaced with handmade tiles. The boxstalls were small displayrooms,

hung with tapestries and lighted with candles in old French sconces. The great carriageroom became a

refectory, with Jacobean and old monastery chairs, and the vast loft overhead, reached by a narrow staircase

that clung to the wall, was railed on its exposed side, waxed as to floor, hung with lanterns, and became a

Natalie worked with him, spending much time and a prodigious amount of energy. There was springing up

between them one of those curious and dangerous intimacies, of idleness on the woman's part, of admiration

on the man's, which sometimes develop into a wholly spurious passion. Probably Rodney realized it;

certainly Natalie did not. She liked his admiration; she dressed, each day, for Rodney's unfailing comment on

So it was Rodney who brought Audrey Valentine out of her seclusion, and he did it by making her angry. He

"A stablewarming!" she said. "How interesting! And fancy dress! Are you going to have them come as

grooms, or jockeys? If I were going I'd go as a circusrider. I used to be able to stand up on a running horse.

"Do go away and let me alone, Rodney," she said at last. "I loathe fancydress parties."

"Then don't have it. I've told you, over and over, I'm not going out. It isn't decent this year, in my opinion.

And, anyhow, I haven't any money, any clothes, any anything. A bad evening at bridge, and I shouldn't be

"That's nonsense. Why do you let people say you are moping about Chris? You're not."

"Well, there's some talk, naturally. You can't be as popular as you have been, and then just drop out, without

"If only you wouldn't hide, Audrey. That's what has made the talk. It's not Chris's going."

"I'm not hiding. That's idiotic. I was bored to death, if you want the truth. Look here, Rodney. You're not

"Well, of course now and then there are always such stories. And of course Chris "

"Yes, they knew Chris." Her voice was scornful. "So they think I'm moping and hiding because How

"Poor Chris!" she said. "The only man in the lot except Clay Spencer who is doing his bit for the war, and

"I'll come," she said. And smiling again, dangerously, "I'll come, with bells on."

There had been once, in Herman Klein the making of a good American. He had come to America, not at the

Taken in time he might have become a good American. But nothing was done to stimulate in him a sentiment

for his adopted land. He would, indeed, have been, for all his citizenship papers, a man without a country but

The Fatherland had never let go. When he went to the Turnverein, it was to hear the old tongue, to sing the

old songs. Visiting Germans from overseas were constantly lecturing, holding before him the vision of great

Germany. He saw movingpictures of Germany; he went to meetings which commenced with "Die Wacht

am Rhine." One Christmas he received a handsome copy of a photograph of the Kaiser through the mail. He

never knew who sent it, but he had it framed in a gilt frame, and it hung over the fireplace in the

He had been adopted by America, but he had not adopted America, save his own tiny bit of it. He took what

the new country gave him with no faintest sense that he owed anything in return beyond his small yearly

His creed through the years had been simple: to owe no man money, even for a day; to spend less than he

earned; to own his own home; to rise early, work hard, and to live at peace with his neighbors. He had

learned English and had sent Anna to the public school. He spoke English with her, always. And on Sunday

he put on his best clothes, and sat in the German Lutheran church, dozing occasionally, but always rigidly

With his first savings he had bought a home, a tiny tworoomed frame cottage on a bill above the Spencer

mill, with a bit of waste land that he turned into a thrifty garden. Anna was born there, and her mother had

died there ten years later. But long enough before that he had added four rooms, and bought an adjoining lot.

At that time the hill had been green; the way to the little white house had been along and up a winding path,

where in the spring the early wild flowers came out on sunny banks, and the first buds of the neighborhood

He voted religiously, and now and then in the evenings he had been the moderate member of a mild socialist

group. Theoretically, he believed that no man should amass a fortune by the labor of others. Actually he felt

In the early morning, winter and summer, he emerged into the small side porch of his cottage and there threw

over himself a pail of cold water from the well outside. Then he rubbed down, dressed in the open air behind

the old awning hung there, took a dozen deep breaths and a cup of coffee, and was off for work. The addition

He was very strict with Anna, and with the women who, one after another, kept house for him.

"I'll have no men lounging around," was his first instruction on engaging them. And to Anna his solicitude

took the form almost of espionage. The only young man he tolerated about the place was a distant relative.

On Sunday evenings Rudolph came in to supper. But even Rudolph found it hard to get a word with the girl

"What's eating him, anyhow," he demanded of Anna one Sunday evening, when by the accident of a neighbor

"He knows a lot about you fellows," Anna had said. "And the more he knows the less he trusts you. I don't

"What's the matter with you?" she demanded angrily one night, when Herman had sat with his pipe in his

mouth, and had refused her permission to go to the movingpictures with another girl. "Do you think I'm

going on forever like this, without a chance to play? I'm sick of it. That's all."

"You vill not run around with the girls on this hill." He had conquered all but the English "w." He still

"What's the matter with the girls on this hill?" And when he smoked on in imperturbable silence, she had

"This is free America," she reminded him. "It's not Germany. And I've stood about all I can. I work all day,

And she had gone, rather shaky as to the knees, but with her head held high, leaving him on the little veranda

with his dead pipe in his moueh and his GermanAmerican newspaper held before his face. She had returned,

still terrified, to find the house dark and the doors locked, and rather than confess to any one, she had spent

At dawn she had heard him at the side of the house, drawing water for his bath. He had gone through his

morning program as usual, by the sounds, and had started off for work without an inquiry about her. Only

when she heard the gate click had she hammered at the front door and been admitted by the untidy servant.

"Fine way to treat me!" she had stormed, and for a part of that day she was convinced that she would never

go back home again. But fear of her father was the strongest emotion she knew, and she went back that night,

as usual. It not being Herman's way to bother with greetings, she had passed him on the porch without a

word, and that night, winding a clock before closing the house, he spoke to her for the first time.

"There is a performance at the Turnverein Hall tomorrow night. Rudolph vill take you."

He had no conception of any failure in himself as a parent. He had the German idea of women. They had a

distinct place in the world, but that place was not a high one. Their function was to bring children into the

world. They were breeding animals, and as such to be carefully watched and not particularly trusted. They

Not that he put it that way. In his way he probably loved the girl. But never once did he think of her as an

intelligent and reasoning creature. He took her salary, gave her a small allowance for carfare, and banked

the rest of it in his own name. It would all be hers some day, so what difference did it make?

He disliked animals. But in a curious shamefaced fashion he liked flowers. Such portions of his garden as

were useless for vegetables he had planted out in flowers. But he never cut them and brought them into the

house, and he watched jealously that no one else should do so. He kept poisoned meat around for such dogs

in the neighborhood as wandered in, and Anna had found him once callously watching the death agonies of

Such, at the time the Spencer mill began work on its new shell contract, was Herman Klein, sturdily honest,

just according to his ideas of justice, callous rather than cruel, but the citizen of a world bounded by his

But, for all that, he was not a man the German organization in America put much faith in. Rudolph, feeling

his way, had had one or two conversations with him early in the war that had made him report adversely.

"Let them stop all this fighting," Herman had said. "What matter now who commenced it? Let them all stop.

"Sure, let them stop!" said Rudolph, easily. "Let them stop trying to destroy Germany."

"That is nonsense," Herman affirmed, sturdily. "Do you think I know nothing? I, who was in the Prussian

The report of the German atrocities, however, found him frankly incredulous, and one noon hour, in the mill,

having read the Belgian King's statement that the German army in Belgium had protected its advance with

The sinking of the Lusitania, however, left him thoughtful and depressed. In vain Rudolph argued with him.

"They were warned," he said. "If they chose to take the chance, is it Germany's fault? If you tell me not to put

my hand on a certain piece in a machine and I do it anyhow, is it your fault if I lose a hand?"

For some time now Rudolph had been in love with Anna. He had not had much encouragement. She went out

with him, since he was her only means of escape, but she treated him rather cavalierly, criticized his clothes

and speech, laughed openly at his occasional lapses into sentiment, and was, once in a long time, so kind that

Until the return of Graham Spencer, all had gone fairly well. But with his installment in the mill, Rudolph's

relations with Anna had changed. She had grown prettier Rudolph was not observant enough to mark what

made the change, but he knew that he was madder about her than ever. And she had assumed toward him an

attitude of almost scornful indifference. The effect on his undisciplined young mind was bad. He had no

suspicion of Graham. He only knew his own desperate unhappiness. In the meetings held twice weekly in a

hall on Third Street he was reckless, advocating violence constantly. The conservative element watched him

The closing week of the old year found the situation strained in the Klein house. Herman had had plenty of

opportunities for situations, but all of them had to do directly or indirectly with the making of munitions for

the Allies. Old firms in other lines were not taking on new men. It was the munition works that were

increasing their personnel. And by that time the determination not to assist Germany's enemies had become a

The day after Christmas, in pursuit of this idea, he commanded Anna to leave the mill. But she had defied

"Don't you kid yourself. And, anyhow, I'm not looking for it. I don't mind working so you can sit here and

She had eyed him morosely. "If you ask me," she continued, "you're out of your mind. What's Germany to

you? You forgot it as fast as you could, until this war came along. You and Rudolph! You're long distance

"Your country s enemies. My word! Isn't this your country? What's the old Kaiser to you?"

He had ordered her out of the house, then, but she had laughed at him. She could always better him in an

"Suppose I do go?" she had inquired. "What are you going to live on? I'm not crazy in the head, if you are."

She rather thought he would strike her. He had done it before, with the idea of enforcing discipline. If he did,

she would leave him. Let him shift for himself. He had taken her money for years, and he could live on that.

"We would have done better to remain in Germany," he said. "America has no respect for parents. It has no

"And another thing, while we're at it," she flung at him. "Don't you go on trying to shove Rudolph down my

She flung out her arm, and old Herman saw the gleam of something gold on her wrist. He caught her hand in

his iron grip and shoved up her sleeve. There was a tiny gold wristwatch there, on a flexible chain. His

He let her go then, and that night, in the little room behind Gustav Shroeder's saloon, he put the question to

Rudolph. Because he was excited and frightened he made slow work of his inquiry, and Rudolph had a

But when the meeting was over, Rudolph did not go back to his boardinghouse. He walked the streets and

He had saved Anna from her father. But he was of no mind to save her from himself. She would have to

Anna herself lay awake until late. She saw already the difficulties before her. Herman was suspicious. He

might inquire. There were other girls from the mill offices on the hill. And he might speak to Rudolph.

The next evening she found Rudolph waiting for her outside the mill gate. Together they started up what had

been, when Herman bought the cottage, a green hill with a winding path. But the smoke and ore from the mill

had long ago turned it to bareness, had killed the trees and shrubbery, and filled the little hollows where once

the first arbutus had hidden with cinders and ore dust. The path had become a crooked street, lined with

Where once Herman Klein had carried his pail and whistled bits of Shubert as he climbed along, a long line

of blackened men made their evening way. Untidy children sat on the curb, dogs lay in the center of the road,

and women in all stages of dishabille hung over the high railings of their porches and watched for their men.

Under protest of giving her a lift up the hill, Rudolph slipped his hand through Anna's left arm.

Immediately she knew that the movement was a pretext. She could not free herself.

"I'll tell you, Rudolph," she temporized. "Only don't tell father. All the girls have watches, and I wanted one.

"On the installment plan," she insisted. "A dollar a week, that's straight. I've paid five on it already."

He was almost convinced, not quite. He unfastened it awkwardly and took it off her wrist. It was a plain little

octagonal watch, and on the back was a monogram. The monogram made him suspicious again.

"Pretty classy monogram for a cheap watch." He held it close; on the dial was the jeweler's name, a famous

one. He said nothing more, put it back on Anna's arm and released her. At the next corner he left her, with a

The Newyear, destined to be so crucial, came in cheerfully enough. There was, to be sure, a trifle less

ostentation in the public celebrations, but the usual amount of champagne brought in the most vital year in

the history of the nation. The customary number of men, warmed by that champagne, made reckless love to

the women who happened to be near them and forgot it by morning. And the women themselves presented

The fact that almost coincident with the war there had come into prominence an entirely new school of color

formed one of the curious contrasts of the period. Into a drab world there flamed strange and bizarre theatrical

effects, in scenery and costume. Some of it was beautiful, most of it merely fantastic. But it was immediately

reflected in the clothing of fashionable women. Europe, which had originated it, could use it but little; but

So, while the rest of the world was gray, America flamed, and Natalie Spencer, spending her days between

On Newyear's Eve Clayton Spencer always preceded the annual ball of the City Club, of which he was

president, by a dinner to the board of governors and their wives. It was his dinner. He, and not Natalie,

arranged the seating, ordered the flowers, and planned the menu. He took considerable pride in it; he liked to

think that it was both beautiful and dignified. His father had been president before him, and he liked to think

that he was carrying on his father's custom with the punctilious dignity that had so characterized him.

He was dressed early. Natalie had been closeted with Madeleine, her maid, and a hairdresser, for hours. As

he went downstairs he could hear her voice raised in querulous protest about something.

When he went into the library Buckham was there stooping over the fire, his austere old face serious and

And after Buckham had gone he thought that rather a curious Newyear's wish. Peace and happiness! Well,

God knows he wanted both. A vague comprehension of the understanding the upper servants of a household

acquire as to the inner life of the family stirred in him; how much they knew and concealed under their

When Natalie came down the staircase a few minutes later she was swathed in her chinchilla evening wrap,

and she watched his face, after her custom when she expected to annoy him, with the furtive look that he had

"I hate dressing for a ball at this hour," she said, rather breathlessly. "I don't feel halfdressed by midnight."

"She has something for my hair," she explained. Her tone was nervous, but he was entirely unsuspicious.

"You don't mind if I don't go on to Page's, do you? I'm rather tired, and I ought to stay at the club as late as I

"Of course not. I shall probably pick up some people, anyhow. Everybody is going on."

In the car she chattered feverishly and he listened, lapsing into one of the silences which her talkative spells

"Thanks, yes. But I'm not wearing them. My gown is flame color. They simply shrieked."

"A sort of orange," she explained. And, in a slightly defiant tone: "Rodney's is a costume dance, you know."

He was rather startled. The annual dinner of the board of governors of the City Club and their wives was a

most dignified function always. He was the youngest by far of the men; the women were all frankly

dowagers. They represented the conservative element of the city's social life, that element which frowned on

smartness and did not even recognize the bizarre. It was oldfashioned, secure in its position, influential, and

"Stodgy old frumps!" was Natalie's comment. "I believe you would rather break one of the ten

It was when he saw her coming down the staircase in the still empty clubhouse that he realized the reason for

her defiant attitude when she acknowledged to fancy dress. For she wore a peacock costume of the most

daring sort. Over an orange foundation, eccentric in itself and very short, was a vivid tunic covered with

peacock feathers on gold tissue, with a sweeping tail behind, and on her head was the towering chest of a

peacock on a gold bandeau. She waved a great peacock fan, also, and halfway down the stairs she paused

He could not hurt her. Her pleasure in it was too naive. It dawned on him then that Natalie was really a child,

a spoiled and wilful child. And always afterward he tried to remember that, and to judge her accordingly.

She came down, the upturned wired points of the tunic trembling as she stepped. When she came closer he

saw that she was made up for the costume ball also, her face frankly rouged, fine lines under her eyes, her

lashes blackened. She looked very lovely and quite unfamiliar. But he had determined not to spoil her

"You'd better like it, Clay," she said, and took a calculating advantage of what she considered a softened

She went on past him, toward the room where the florist was still putting the finishing touches to the flowers

on the table. When the first guests arrived, she came back and took her place near him, and he was

uncomfortably aware of the little start of surprise with which she burst upon each new arrival, In the old and

rather staid surroundings of the club she looked out of place oriental, extravagant, absurd.

And Clayton Spencer suffered. To draw him as he stood in the club that last year of our peace, 1916, is to

draw him not only with his virtues but with his faults; his over emphasis on small things; his jealousy for his

When, after the informal manner of clubs, the party went in to dinner, he was having one of the bad hours of

his life to that time. And when, as was inevitable, the talk of the rather serious table turned to the war, it

seemed to him that Natalie, gorgeous and painted, represented the very worst of the country he loved,

Already with the men she was having a triumph. The women, soberly clad, glanced at each other with raised

eyebrows and cynical smiles. Above the band, already playing in the ballroom, Clayton could hear old

"You should be sitting in the sun, or on a balcony," he was saying, his eyes twinkling. "And pretty gentlemen

with long curls and their hats tucked under their arms should be feeding you nightingale tongues, or whatever

"But tell me," Terry bent toward her, and Mrs. Terry kept fascinated eyes on him. "Tell me, lovely creature

"Frightfully bad luck," said Terry, jovially. "Some one will undoubtedly carry you away, in the course of the

evening, and go madly through the world hunting a marble balustrade to set you on. I'll do it myself if you'll

Perhaps, had Clayton Spencer been entirely honest with himself that night, he would have acknowledged that

he had had a vague hope of seeing Audrey at the club. Cars came up, discharged their muffled occupants

under the awning and drove away again. Delight and Mrs. Haverford arrived and he danced with Delight, to

her great anxiety lest she might not dance well. Graham came very late, in the wake of Marion Hayden.

He waited until the Newyear came in. The cotillion was on then, and the favors for the midnight figure were

gilt cornucopias filled with loose flowers. The lights went out for a moment on the hour, the twelve strokes

were rung on a triangle in the orchestra, and there was a moment's quiet. Then the light blazed again, flowers

and confetti were thrown, and club servants in livery carried round trays of champague.

Clayton, standing glass in hand, surveyed the scene with a mixture of satisfaction and impatience. He found

Some time later going home in the car with Mrs. Mackenzie, quiet and slightly grim beside him, Terry spoke

"There's something wrong with Clay," he said. "If ever a fellow had a right to be happy he has a queer look.

"Anybody married to Natalie Spencer would develop what you call a queer look," she replied, tartly.

"If you ask me, I think he has reached the point where he can't bear the sight of her. But he doesn't know it."

"So is a lampshade," replied Mrs. Terry, acidly. "Or a kitten, or a fancy icecream. But you wouldn't care to

It was almost dawn when Natalie came in. Clayton had not been asleep. He had got to thinking rather

feverishly of the Newyear. Without in any way making a resolution, he had determined to make it a better

year than the last; to be more gentle with Natalie, more understanding with Graham; to use his new prosperity

wisely; to forget his own lack of happiness in making others happy. He was very vague about that. The search

To his surprise, Natalie came into his bedroom, looking like some queer oriental bird, vivid and strangely

"I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope you didn't mind my not going on." "I wish you had. Clay, you'll never guess

"Well, Audrey just made it, that's all. Funny! I wish you'd seen some of their faces. Of course she was

disgraceful, but she took it off right away. But it was like her no one else would have dared."

"It was in the stable, you know, I told you. And just at midnight the doors opened and a big white horse

leaped in with Audrey on his back. No saddle nothing. She was dressed like a bareback rider in the circus,

short tulle skirts and tights. They nearly mobbed her with joy." She yawned. "Well, I'm off to bed."

"Thanks," she said, and wandered out, her absurd feathered tail trailing behind her.

He lay back and closed his eyes. So Audrey had done that, Audrey, who had been in his mind all those

sleepless hours; for he knew now that back of all his resolutions to do better had been the thought of her.

He felt disappointed and bitter. The sad disillusion of the middle years, still heroically clinging to faiths that

Audrey was frightened. She did not care a penny's worth what her little world thought. Indeed, she knew that

she had given it a new thrill and so had won its enthusiastic approval. She was afraid of what Clayton would

She was absurdly quiet and virtuous all the next day, gathered out her stockings and mended them; began a

personal expenditure account for the Newyear, heading it carefully with "darning silk, 50 cents"; wrote a

long letter to Chris, and listened for the telephone. If only he would call her, so she could explain. Still,

what could she explain? She had done it. It was water over the dam and it is no fault of Audrey's that she

By noon she was fairly abject. She did not analyze her own anxiety, or why the recollection of her escapade,

which would a short time before have filled her with a sort of unholy joy, now turned her sick and trembling.

Then, in the middle of the afternoon, Clay called her up. She gasped a little when she heard his voice.

"I wanted to tell you, Audrey," he said, "that we can probably use the girl you spoke about, rather soon."

"Why, of course I'll come, Audrey," he said, and as he rang off he was happier than he had been all day.

He was coming. Audrey moved around the little room, adjusting chairs, rearranging the flowers that had

poured in on Newyear's day, brushing the hearth. And as she worked she whistled. He would be getting into

the car now. He would be so far on his way. He would be almost there. She ran into her bedroom and

powdered her nose, with her lips puckered, still whistling, and her heart singing.

"Why on earth did you do it," he finished. "I still can't understand. I see you one day, gravity itself, a serious

"Oh yes, it is. It's exactly like me. Like one me. There are others, of course."

She told him then, making pitiful confession of her own pride and her anxiety to spare Chris's name.

"I couldn't bear to have them suspect he had gone to the war because of a girl. Whatever he ran away from,

He listened gravely, with, toward the end, a jealousy he would not have acknowledged even to himself. Was

it possible that she still loved Chris? Might she not, after the fashion of women, be building a new and

Again the warmth and coziness of the little room enveloped him. Audrey's low huskily sweet voice, her quick

smile, her new and unaccustomed humility, and the odd sense of her understanding, comforted him. She

He realized that he had really come to her to talk about it. It had been in the back of his head all the time.

"I'm afraid she's got him, Clay. There isn't a trick in the game she doesn't know. He had about as much

chance as I have of being twenty again. She wants to make a wealthy marriage, and she's picked on Graham.

"It isn't only Marion. I'm afraid there's another girl, a girl at the mill his stenographer. I have no proof of

anything. In fact, I don't think there is anything yet. She's in love with him, probably, or she thinks she is. I

happened on them together, and she looked Of course, if what you say about Marion is true, he can not care

"Oh, nonsense, Clay. A man especially a boy can love a halfdozen girls. He can be crazy about any girl

he is with. It may not be love, but it plays the same tricks with him that the real thing does."

She leaned back and watched him. How much of a boy he was himself, anyhow! And yet how little he

understood the complicated problems of a boy like Graham, irresponsible but responsive, rich without labor,

with time for the sort of dalliance Clay himself at the same age had had neither leisure nor inclination to

He was wandering about the room, his hands in his pockets, his head bent. When he stopped:

He told her of Dunbar and the photographs, of Rudolph Klein, and the problem as he saw it.

"So there I am," he finished. "If I let her go, I lose one of the links in Dunbar's chain. If I keep her?"

"Can't Natalie talk to him? Sometimes a woman can get to the bottom of these things when a man can't. He

She leaned over and patted his hand impulsively. "What devils we women are!" she said. "Now and then one

of us gets what she deserves. That's me. And now and then one of us get's something she doesn't deserve.

"The fault is mine. I know my business better than I know how to handle my life, or my family. I don't know

why I trouble you with it all, anyhow. You have enough." He hesitated. "That's not exactly true, either. I do

"I have a curious feeling that I am losing him. I can't ask for his confidence. I can't, apparently, even deserve

it. I see him, day after day, with all the good stuff there is in him, working as little as he can, drinking more

than he should, out half the night, running into debt good heavens, Audrey, what can I do?"

"I ought not to have to lose my boy in order to find him. But we are going to be in it."

He had risen and was standing, an elbow on the mantelpiece, looking down at her.

"I suppose every man wonders, once in a while, how he'd conduct himself in a crisis. When the Lusitania

went down I dare say a good many fellows wondered if they'd have been able to keep their coward bodies out

of the boats. I know I did. And I wonder about myself now. What can I do if we go into the war? I couldn't do

a forced march of more than five miles. I can't drill, or whatever they call it. I can shoot clay pigeons, but I

don't believe I could hit a German coming at me with a bayonet at twenty feet. I'd be pretty much of a total

And when she sat, very silent, looking into the fire:. "You see, you think it absurd yourself."

"Hardly absurd," she roused herself to look up at him. "If it is, it's the sort of splendid absurdity I am proud

"I don't believe it lies between a man and his wife. It's between him and his God."

Natalie Spencer was finding life full of interest that winter. Now and then she read the headings in the

newspapers, not because she was really interested, but that she might say, at the dinnerparty which was to

Clayton had overheard her more than once, and had marveled at the dexterity with which, these leaders

The new house engrossed her. She was seeing a great deal of Rodney, too, and now and then she had fancied

that there was a different tone in Rodney's voice when he addressed her. She never analyzed that tone, or

what it suggested, but it gave her a new interest in life. She was always marceled, massaged, freshly

manicured. And she had found a new facial treatment. Clayton, in his room at night, could hear the sharp

slapping of flesh on flesh, as Madeleine gently pounded certain expensive creams into the skin of her face

She refused all forms of war activity, although now and then she put some appeal before Clayton and asked

him if he cared to send a check. He never suggested that she answer any of these demands personally, after an

"Why don't you send it yourself?" he had asked. "Wouldn't you like it to go in your name?"

"I thought my allowance was only to dress on. If I'm to attend to charities, too, you'll have to increase it."

"But," he argued patiently, "if you only sent them twentyfive dollars, did without some little thing to do it,

"If I put an extra thousand dollars to your account tomorrow, will you check it out to this fund?"

"Yes, of course," she had agreed, indifferently. And he had notified her that the money was in the bank. But

two months later the list of contributors was published, and neither his name nor Natalie's was among them.

Toward personal service she had no inclination whatever. She would promise anything, but the hour of

fulfilling always found her with something else to do. Yet she had kindly impulses, at times, when something

occurred to take her mind from herself. She gave liberally to street mendicants. She sent her car to be used by

those of her friends who had none. She was lavish with flowers to the sick although Clayton paid her florist

In the weeks after the opening of the new year Clayton found himself watching her. He wondered sometimes

just what went on in her mind during the hours when she sat, her hands folded, gazing into space. He could

not tell. He surmised her planning, always planning; the new house, a gown, a hat, a party.

But late in January he began to think that she was planning something else. Old Terry Mackenzie had been

there one night, and he had asserted not only that war was coming, but that we would be driven to

"They've all had to come to it," he insisted. "And we will, as sure as God made little fishes. You can't raise a

"You mean, conscription among the laboring class?" Natalie had asked naively, and there had been a roar of

"Not at all," Terry had said. And chuckled. "This war, if it comes, is every man's burden, rich and poor. Only

He came home late one afternoon to find that they were spending the evening in, and to find a very serious

Natalie waiting, when he came downstairs dressed for dinner. She made an effort to be conversational, but it

was a failure. He was uneasily aware that she was watching him, inspecting, calculating, choosing her

"He ought to stay here, and make a man of himself," he came out, almost in spite of himself. He knew well

enough that such a note always roused Natalie's antagonism, and he waited for the storm. But none came.

"He's not failing entirely. But he gives the best of himself outside the mill. That's all."

"Don't you think, if he was away from this silly crowd he plays with, as he calls it, that he would be better

"You keep an agent in England. He could go there. Or to Russia, if the Russian contract goes through."

>From her astonished expression, he knew that he had been wrong. She was not trying to get him away from

Well, it was out. She might as well know it. "Don't you think it possible, Natalie, that he may intend to marry

There was a very unpleasant halfhour after that. Marion was a parasite of the rich. She had abused Natalie's

hospitality. She was designing. She played bridge for her dress money. She had ensnared the boy.

"That settles it, I should think. He ought to leave America. If you have a single thought for his welfare you'll

"No. I knew he was not doing well. And I'm anxious. After all, he's my boy. He is "

"I know," he supplemented gravely. "He is all you have. But I still don't understand why he must leave

It was not until she had gone upstairs to her room, leaving him uneasily pacing the library floor, that he

found the solution. Old Terry Mackenzie and his statement about conscription. Natalie wanted Graham sent

out of the country, so he would be safe. She would purchase for hint a shameful immunity, if war came. She

would stultify the boy to keep him safe. In that hour of clear vision he saw how she had always stultified the

boy, to keep him safe. He saw her life a series of small subterfuges, of petty indulgences, of little plots

against himself, all directed toward securing Graham immunity from trouble at school, from debt, from his

A wave of unreasoning anger surged over him, but with it there was pity, too; pity for the narrowness of her

life and her mind, pity for her very selfishness. And for the first time in his life he felt a shamefaced pity for

Rudolph Klein had not for a moment believed Anna's story about the watch, and on the day after he

discovered it on her wrist he verified his suspicions. During his noon hour he went uptown and, with the

confident swagger of a certain type of man who feels himself out of place, entered the jeweler's shop in

He had to wait for some little time, and he spent it in surveying contemptuously the contents of the

showcases. That even his wildest estimate fell far short of their value he did not suspect, but his lips curled.

This was where the money earned by honest workmen was spent, that women might gleam with such

gewgaws. Wall Street bought them, Wall Street which was forcing this country into the war to protect its

loans to the Allies. America was to pull England's chestnuts out of the fire that women, and yet more women,

Into his crooked mind there flashed a line from a speech at the hird Street hall the night before: "War is hell.

So Wall Street bought pearls for its women, and the dissolute sons of the rich bought gold wristwatches

for girls they wanted to seduce. The expression on his face was so terrible that the clerk behind the counter,

"I want to look at gold wristwatches," he said. And eyed the clerk for a trace of patronage.

He finally found one that was a duplicate of Anna's, and examined it carefully. Yes, it was the same, the

"Don't sell on the installment plan, either, I suppose?" The sneer in his voice was clearer than his anxiety. In

He went out. So he had been right. That young skunk had paid a hundred dollars for a watch for Anna. To

That had been early in January. For some days he kept his own counsel, thinking, planning, watching. He was

jealous of Graham, but with a calculating jealousy that set him wondering how to turn his knowledge to his

own advantage. And Anna's lack of liberty comforted him somewhat. He couldn't meet her outside the mill,

"What're you hanging round for?" she would demand when he stepped forward at the mill gate. "D'you

But she never lost him. He was beside her or at her heels, his small crafty eyes on her. When he walked

After a few weeks she became terrified. There was a coldness of deviltry in him, she knew. And he had the

whiphand. She was certain he knew about the watch, and her impertinence masked an agony of fear.

She suspected him, but she did not know of what. She knew he was an enemy of all government, save that of

the mob, that he was an incendiary, a firebrand who set on fire the brutish passions of a certain type of

malcontents. She knew, for all he pretended to be the voice of labor, he no more represented the honest labor

She watched him sometimes, at the table, when on Sundays he ate the midday meal with them; his thin

hatchet face, his prominent epiglottis. He wore a fresh cotton shirt then, with a flaming necktie, but he did not

clean his fingernails. And his talk was always of tearing down, never of building up.

"Just give us time, and we'll show them," he often said. And "them" was always the men higher up.

He hated policemen. He and Herman had had many arguments about policemen. Herman was not like

Rudolph. He believed in law and order. He even believed in those higher up. But he believed very strongly in

the fraternity of labor. Until the first weeks of that Newyear, Herman Klein, outside the tyranny of his home

life, represented very fairly a certain type of workman, believing in the dignity and integrity of his order. But,

with his failure to relocate himself, something went wrong in Herman. He developed, in his obstinate,

stubborn, German head a suspicion of the land of his adoption. He had never troubled to understand it. He

had taken it for granted, as he took for granted that Anna should work and turn over her money to him.

Now it began to ask things of him. Not much. A delegation of women came around one night and asked him

for money for Belgian Relief. The delegation came, because no one woman would venture alone.

"I have no money for Belgians," he said. He would not let them come in. "Why should I help the Belgians?

The story went about the neighborhood, and he knew it. He cared nothing for popularity, but he resented

losing his standing in the community. And all along he was convinced that he was right; that the Belgians had

lied. There had been, in the Germany he had left, no such will to wanton killing. These people were ignorant.

He read only German newspapers. In the little room back of Gustav Shroeder's he met only Germans. And

Until the middle of January Rudolph had not been able to get him to one of his incendiary meetings. Then

one cold night while Anna sewed by the lamp inside the little house, Rudolph and Herman walked in the

frozen garden, Herman with his pipe, Rudolph with the cheap cigarets he used incessantly. Anna opened the

door a crack and listened at first. She was watchful of Rudolph, always, those days. But the subject was not

"So 'Spencers' can make more money out of it," said Rudolph bitterly. "And others like them. But they and

their kind don't do the dying. It's the workers that go and die. Look at Germany!"

"All this talk about democracy that's bunk. Just plain bunk. Why should the workers in this country kill the

"Ja," Herman assented. "That is what war is. Always the same. I came here to get away from war."

"Well, you didn't get far enough. You left a king behind, but we've got a Czar here."

"I am a workman," he said. "I would not fight against other workmen. Just as I, a German, will not fight

"But you would sit here, on the hill, and do nothing." "What can I do? One man, and with no job."

"You and your meetings!" the old German said impatientIy. "You talk. That's all."

"You think we only talk, eh? Well, you come and hear some things. Talk! You come," he coaxed, changing

his tone. "And we'll have some beer and schnitzel at Gus's after. My treat. How about it?"

Old Herman assented. He was tired of the house, tired of the frozen garden, tired of scolding the slovenly girl

who pottered around all day in a boudoir cap and slovenly wrapper. Tired of Anna's rebellious face and pert

"I go out," he said, to the impassive figure under the lamp. "You will stay in."

"You will stay in," he repeated, arid followed Rudolph outside. There he reached in, secured the key, and

locked the door on the outside. Anna, listening and white with anger, heard his ponderous steps going around

It was after midnight when she heard him coming back. She prepared to leap out of her bed when he came

upstairs, to confront him angrily and tell him she was through. She was leaving home. But long after she

had miserably cried herself to sleep, Herman sat below, his longstemmed pipe in his teeth, his stockinged

In that small guarded hail that night he had learned many surprising things, there and at Gus's afterward. The

Fatherland's war was already being fought in America, and not only by Germans. The workers of the world

had banded themselves together, according to the night's speakers. And because they were workers they

would not fight the German workers. It was all perfectly simple. With the cooperation of the workers of the

world, which recognized no country but a vast brotherhood of labor, it was possible to end war, all war.

In the meantime, while all the workers all over the world were being organized, one prevented as much as

possible any assistance going to capitalistic England. One did some simple thing started a strike, or sawed

lumber too short, or burned a wheatfield, or put nails in harvesting machinery, or missent perishable goods,

or changed signallights on railroads, or drove copper nails into fruittrees, so they died. This was a pity, the

So each one did but one thing, and that small, so small that it was difficult to discover. But there were two

hundred thousand men to do them, according to Rudolph, and that meant a great deal.

Only one thing about the meeting. Herman had not liked. There were packages of wicked photographs going

about. Filthy things. When they came to him be had dropped them on the floor. What had they to do with

"They won't bite you!" he had said, and had stooped to pick them up. But Herman had kept his foot on them.

So America would go into the war against the Fatherland, unless many hundreds of thousands did each

their little bit. And if they did not, America would go in, and fight for England to control the seas, and the

Spencer plant would make millions of shells that honest German workers, sweatbrothers of the world, might

"We would extend the hand of brotherhood to the socalled enemy, and strangle the cry for war in the fat

white throats of the bloodbloated moneylenders of Wall Street, before it became articulate."

He was very tired. He stooped and picked up his shoes, and with them in his hand, drawn to his oldtime

military erectness, he stood for some time before the giltframed picture on the wall. Then he went slowly

>From the moment, the day before Christmas, when Graham had taken the little watch from his pocket and

fastened it on Anna's wrist, he was rather uneasily aware that she had become his creature. He had had no

intention of buying Anna. He was certainly not in love with her. But he found her amusing and at times

He had, of course, expected to lose her after the unlucky day when Clayton had found them together, but

Dunbar had advised that she be kept on for a time at least. Mentally Graham figured that the first of January

would see her gone, and the thought of a Christmas present for her was partly compounded of remorse.

He had been buying a cigaret case for Marion when the thought came to him. He had not bought a Christmas

present for a girl, except flowers, since the first year he was at college. He had sent Delight one that year, a

halfdozen little leatherbound books of poetry. What a precious young prig he must have been! He knew

now that girls only pretended to care for books. They wanted jewelry, and they got past the family with it by

pretending it was not real, or that they had bought it out of their allowances. One of Toots' friends was taking

a set of silver fox from a man, and she was as straight as a die. Oh, he knew girls, now.

Later on, however, she had seen a watch one of the girls on the hill had bought for twelve dollars, and on his

So she told him rather nervously, for she felt that twelve dollars was a considerable sum. He had laughed, and

agreed instantly, but when he went to buy it he found himself paying a price that rather startled him.

"Don't you lose it, young lady!" he admonished her when, the day before Christmas, he fastened it on her

wrist. Then he had stooped down to kiss her, and the intensity of feeling in her face had startled him. "It's a

He meant well enough even then. He had never pretended to love her. He accepted her adoration, petted and

teased her in return, worked off his occasional ill humors on her, was indeed conscious sometimes that he

But by the middle of January he began to grow uneasy. The atmosphere at Marion's was bad; there was a

knowledge of life plus an easy toleration of certain human frailties that was as insidious as a slow fever. The

motto of live and let live prevailed. And Marion refused to run away with him and marry him, or to let him

In his office all day long there was Anna, so yielding, so surely his to take if he wished. Already he knew that

things there must either end or go forward. Human emotions do not stand still; they either advance or go

He made at last an almost frenzied appeal to Marion to marry him at once, but she refused flatly.

"I'm not going to ruin you," she said. "If you can't bring your people round, we'll just have to wait."

"Not if I know your father! Oh, he'd be all right in ten years or so. But what about the next two or three?

He lay awake most of the night thinking things over. Did she really care for him, as Anna cared, for instance?

She was always talking about their having to live. If they couldn't manage on his salary for a while, then it

For the first time he began to question Marion's feeling for him. She had been rather patronizing him lately.

He had overheard her, once, speaking of him as a nice kid, and it rankled. In sheer assertion of his manhood

he met Anna Klein outside the mill at the noon hour, the next day, and took her for a little ride in his car.

After that he repeatedly did the same thing, choosing infrequented streets and roads, dining with her

"Tell him you're getting ready to move out to the new plant, and we're working. He's not round much in the

evenings now. He's at meetings, or swilling beer at Gus's saloon. They're a bad lot, Graham, that crowd at

"Well, they're Germans, for one thing, the sort that shouts about the Fatherland. They make me sick."

"Let's forget them, honey," said Graham, and reaching under the tablecloth, caught and held one of her

He was beginning to look at things with the twisted vision of Marion's friends. He intended only to flirt a

little with Anna Klein, but he considered that he was extremely virtuous and, perhaps, a bit of a fool for

letting things go at that. Once, indeed, Tommy Hale happened on them in a roadhouse, sitting very quietly

with a glass of beer before Graham and a lemonade in front of Anna, and had winked at him as though he had

Then, near the end of January, events took another step forward. Rudolph Klein was discharged from the

Clayton, coming down one morning, found the manager, Hutchinson, and Dunbar in his office. The two men

"He is a constant disturbing element," Hutchinson finished; "I understand Mr. Dunhar's position, but we can't

"If you discharge him you rouse his suspicions and those of his gang," said Dunbar, sturdily.

In the end, however, Clayton decided to let Rudolph go. Hutchinson was insistent. Production was falling

down. One or two accidents to the machinery lately looked like sabotage. He had found a black cat crudely

drawn on the cement pavement outside his officedoor that very morning, the black cat being the symbol of

For just a moment Dunbar hesitated. He knew certain things that Clayton Spencer did not, things that it was

his business to know. The girl might be valuable one of these days. She was in love with young Spencer. The

time might come when he, Dunbar, would need to capitalize that love and use it against Rudolph and the rest

of the crowd that met in the little room behind Shroeder's saloon. It was too bad, in a way. He was sorry for

this man with the strong, repressed face and kindly mouth, who sat across from him. But these were strange

"Better keep her on for a month or two, anyhow," he said. "They're up to something, and I miss my guess if it

"Nothing doing," stated Mr. Dunbar, flatly. "Our informer is tending bar at Gus's. Herman listens and drinks

their beer, but he's got the German fear of authority in him. He's a beer socialist. That's all."

But in that Mr. Dunbar left out of account the innate savagery that lurked under Herman's phlegmatic surface.

"The point is this." Dunbar moved his chair forward. "The time may come when we will need the girl as an

informer. Rudolph Klein is infatuated with her. Now I understand that she has a certain feeling of loyalty to

Mr. Graham. In that case" he glanced at Clayton "the welfare of the many, Mr. Spencer, against the few."

For a long time after he was gone Clayton sat at his desk, thinking. Every instinct in him revolted against the

situation thus forced on him. There was something wrong with Dunbar's reasoning. Then it flashed on him

that Dunbar probably was right, and that their points of view were bitterly opposed. Dunbar would have no

scruples, because he was not quite a gentleman. But war was a man's game. It was not the time for fine

If only he could talk it over with Natalie! But he knew Natalie too well to expect any rational judgment from

her. She would demand at once that the girl should go. Yet he needed a woman's mind on it. In any question

of relationship between the sexes men were creatures of impulse, but women had plotted and planned through

the ages. They might lose their standards, but never their heads. Not that he put such a thought into words. He

That afternoon, as a result of much uncertainty, he took his problem to Audrey. And Audrey gave him an

"You've got to think of the mill, Clay," she said. "The Dunbar man is right. And all you or any other father of

"He never had any early training, Audrey. Oh, he had certain things. His manners, for instance. But other

things? I ought not to say that. It was my fault, too. I'm not blaming only Natalie. Only now, when it is all we

He was full of remorse when he started for home. He felt guilty of every disloyalty. And in masculine fashion

he tried to make up to Natalie for the truth that had been wrung from him. He carried home a great bunch of

roses for her. But he carried home, too, a feeling of comfort and vague happiness, as though the little room

In the evening of the thirtyfirst of January Clayton and Graham were waiting for Natalie to come down to

dinner when the bell rang, and Dunbar was announced. Graham welcomed the interruption. He had been

vaguely uneasy with his father since that day in his office when Clayton had found him on Anna Klein's desk.

Clayton had tried to restore the old friendliness of their relation, but the boy had only halfheartedly met his

advances. Now and then he himself made an overture, but it was the almost timid advance of a puppy that has

been beaten. It left Clayton discouraged and alarmed, set him to going back over the past for any severity on

his part to justify it. Now and then he wondered if, in Graham's frequent closetings with Natalie, she did not

But if she did, why? What was going on behind the impassive, lovely mask that was her face. Dunbar was

"I've brought you some news, Mr. Spencer," he said. He looked oddly vital and alive in the subdued and quiet

"Then listen," said Dunbar, bending forward over a table, much as it was his habit to bend over Clayton's

desk. "We're in it at last. Or as good as in it. Unrestricted submarine warfare! All merchantships bound to

and from Allied ports to be sunk without warning! We're to be allowed mark this, it's funny! we're to be

allowed to send one ship a week to England, nicely marked and carrying passengers only."

"Hell turned over and stirred up with a pitchfork, if we have any backbone at all," agreed Dunbar. He turned

Clayton slipped an arm about the boy's shoulders. He could not speak for a moment. All at once he saw what

the news meant. He saw Graham going into the horror across the sea. He saw vast lines of marching men,

boys like Graham, boys who had frolicked through their careless days, whistled and played and slept sound of

nights, now laden like pack~animals and carrying the implements of death in their hands, going forward to

Dunbar turned his back and inspected Natalie's portrait. When he faced about again Graham was lighting a

cigaret, and Natalie herself was entering the room. In her rosecolored satin she looked exotic, beautiful, and

Dunbar gave her a fleeting glance of admiration as he bowed. She looked too young to have a boy going to

war. Behind her he suddenly saw other women, thousands of other women, living luxurious lives, sheltered

and pampered, and suddenly called on to face sacrifice without any training for it.

"We are dining at home," said Natalie, coldly. She remained standing near the door, as a hint to the shabby

gentleman with the alert eyes who stood by the table. But Dunbar had forgotten her already.

"I came here right away," he explained, "because you may be having trouble now. In fact, I'm pretty sure you

But Natalie was looking at Clayton with a hostility in her eyes she took no trouble to conceal.

"I hope you'll be happy, now. You've been talking war, wanting war and now you've got it."

She turned and went out of the room. The three men in the library below heard her go up the stairs and the

slam of her door behind her. Later on she sent word that she did not care for any dinner, and Clayton asked

Dunbar to remain. Practical questions as to the mill were discussed, Graham entering into them with a new

interest. He was flushed and excited. But Clayton was rather white and very quiet.

"I'll go and speak to mother," he said. And Clayton felt in him a new manliness. It was as though his glance

said, "She is a woman, you know. War is men's work, work for you and me. But it's hard on them."

Afterward Clayton was to remember with surprise how his friends gathered that night at the house. Nolan

came in early, his twisted grin rather accentuated, his tall frame more than usually stooped. He stood in the

doorway of the library, one hand in his pocket, a familiar attitude which made him look oddly boyish.

"Well!" he drawled, without greeting. "They've done it. The English have got us. We hadn't a chance. The

"Come in," Clayton said, "and talk like an American and not an Irishman. I don't want to know what you

"I was thinking," Nolan observed, advancing, "of blowing up Washington. We'd have a fresh start, you see.

With Washington gone root and branch we would have some sort of chance, a clear sweep, with the capital

Clayton laughed. Behind Nolan's cynicism he felt a real disturbance. But Dunbar eyed him uncertainly. He

didn't know about some of these Irish. They'd fight like hell, of course, if only they'd forget England.

"Don't worry about Washington," Clayton said. "Let it work out its own problems. We will have our own.

"Why can't we fight?" he asked. "I heard something the other day. Roosevelt is going to take a division

abroad older men. I rather like the idea. Wherever he goes there'11 be fighting. I'm no Rough Rider, God

knows; But I haven't spent a half hour every noon in a gymnasium for the last ten years for nothing. And I

"it's going to be hard on the women," he said. "You're all right. They won't let you go. You're too useful

Clayton's face was set. For more than an hour now Graham had been closeted with his mother, and as the

time went on, and no slam of a door upstairs told of his customary method of leaving a room, he had been

conscious of a growing uneasiness. The boy was soft; the fiber in him had not been hardened yet, not enough

to be proof against tears. He wanted desperately to leave Nolan, to go up and learn what arguments, what

coaxing and selfish whimperings Natalie was using with the boy. But he wanted, also desperately, to have the

"He will want to go, I think. Of course, his mother will be shaken just now. It'll all new to her. She wouldn't

"He'll go," Nolan said reflectively. "They'll all go, the best of them first. After all, we've been making a lot of

noise about wanting to get into the thing. Now we're in, and that's the first price we pay the boys."

A door slammed upstairs, and Clayton heard Graham coming down. He passed the library door, however,

"I thought I'd go out for a hit of a spin, if you don't mind. Evening, Mr. Nolan."

The boy was shaken. Clayton knew it from his tone. All the fine vigor of the early evening was gone. And an

overwhelming rage filled him, against Natalie, against himself, even against the boy. Trouble, which should

"You can go out later," he said rather sharply. "We ought to talk things over, Graham. This is a mighty

"What's the use of talking things over, father? We don't know anything but that we may declare war."

But he was startled when he saw Graham's face. He was very pale and his eyes already looked furtive. They

were terribly like Natalie's eyes sometimes. The frankness was gone out of them. He came into the room, and

"Bad things, sleepingpowders," said Nolan. "Get her to take some settingup exercises by an open window

Clayton saw that it was of no use to urge the boy. Graham wanted to avoid him, wanted to avoid an

interview. The early glow of the evening faded. Once again the sense of having lost his son almost

However, he did not leave the house. At the door he met Doctor Haverford. and Delight, and Clayton heard

When he came into the library he was still holding forth with an affectation of rage.

"I ask you, Clayton," he said, "what refuge is there for a man of peace? My own child, leading me out into the

night, and inquiring on the way over if I did not feel that the commandment not to kill was a serious error."

"Of course he's going," she said. "He has been making the most outrageous excuses, just to hear mother and

"My dear," said the rector solemnly. "T shall have to tell you something. I shall have to lay bare the secrets of

my heart. How are you, Nolan? Delight, they will not take me. I have three back teeth on a plate. I have never

told you this before. I did not wish to ruin your belief that I am perfect. But "

In the laugh that greeted this Graham returned. He was, Clayton saw, vaguely puzzled by the rector and rather

"Of course. Aren't you going? Isn't everybody who is worth anything going? I'd go myself if I could. You

Clayton overheard that, and he saw Graham wince. His own hands clenched. What a power in the world a

brave woman was! And what evil could be wrought by a woman without moral courage, a selfish woman. He

Others came in. Hutchinson, from the mill. Terry Mackenzie, Rodney Page, in evening clothes and on his

way from the opera to something or other. In a corner Graham and Delight talked. The rector, in a high state

of exaltation, was inclined to be oratorical and a trifle noisy. He dilated on the vast army that would rise

overnight, at the call. He considered the raising of a company from his own church, and nominated Clayton

"Precisely," he said dryly. "Clayton, because he looks like a Greek god, is ideally fitted to lead a lot of men

who never saw a bayonet outside of a museum. Against trained fighting men. There's a difference you know,

dominie, between a clay pigeon and a German with a bomb in one hand and a sawtoothed bayonet in the

"Well, you can bet on one thing; we're not going to have every ward boss who wants to make a record raising

"Never come to it in the world." Hutchinson spoke up. "I've heard men in the mill talking. They'll go, some of

Clayton glanced at Graham as he replied. The boy was leaning forward, listening.

"There's this to be said for the draft," he said. "Under the volunteer system the best of our boys will go first.

That's what happened in England. And they were wiped out. It's every man's war now. There is no reason

"And there's this, too," Graham broke in. He was flushed and nervous. "A fellow would have to go. He

wouldn't be having to think whether his going would hurt anybody or not. He wouldn't have to decide. He'd

"Righto!" he said. "The only trouble about it is that it's likely to leave out some of us old chaps, who'd like

Hutchinson remained after the others had gone. He wanted to discuss the change in status of the plant.

"We'll be taken over by the government, probably," Clayton told him. "They have all the figures, capacity

"We'll have to look out more than ever, I suppose," he said, as he rose to go. "The government is guarding all

Graham left when he did, offering to take him to his home, and Clayton sat for some time alone, smoking and

thinking. So the thing had come at last. A year from now, and where would they all be? The men who had

been there tonight, himself, Graham? Would they all be even living? Would Graham ?

He looked back over the years. Graham a baby, splashing water in his bath and shrieking aloud with joy;

Graham in his first littleboy clothes, riding a velocipede in the park and bringing in bruises of an amazing

size and blackness; Graham going away to school, and manfully fixing his mind on his first long trousers, so

he would not cry; Graham at college, coming in with the winning crew, and stumbling, half collapsed, into

the arms of a waiting, cheering crowd. And the Graham who had followed his mother up the stairs that night,

He rose and threw away his cigar. He must have the thing out with Natalie. The boy's soul was more

important than his body. He wanted him safe. God, how he wanted him safe! But he wanted him to be a man.

Natalie's room was dark when he went in. He hesitated. Then he heard her in bed, sobbing quietly. He was

angry at himself for his impatience at the sound. He stood beside the bed, and forced a gentleness he did not

"No, thank you." And he moved toward the lamp. "Don't turn the light on. I look dreadful."

"Sometimes it helps to talk out our worries, dear." He was still determinedly gentle.

"That's hardly worthy of you, Natalie," he said gravely. He is my son, too. I love him at least as much as you

do. I don't think this is really up to us, anyhow. It is up to him. If he wants to go?"

"How does he know what he wants?" she demanded. "He's too young. He doesn't know what war is; you say

so yourself. You say he is too young to have a position worth while at the plant, but of course he's old enough

to go to war and have a leg shot off, or to be blinded, or something." Her voice broke.

He sat down on the bed and felt around until he found her hand. But she jerked it from him.

He rose, more nearly despairing than he had ever been. He could not argue with a hysterical woman. He

hated cowardice, but far deeper than that was his conviction that she had already exacted some sort of

promise. And the boy was not like her in that respect. He regarded a promise as almost in the nature of an

oath. He himself had taught him that in the creed of a gentleman a promise was a thing of his honor, to be

"You are compelling me to do a strange and hateful thing," he said. "If you intend to use your influence to

keep him out, I shall have to offset it by urging him to go. That is putting a very terrible responsibility on

Suddenly he felt sorry for her. She was so weak, so childish, so cowardly. And this was the nearest they had

"You're tired and nervous," he said. "We have come a long way from what I started out to say. And a long

way from the way things used to be between us. If this thing, tonight, does not bring two people together

"Together!" she cried shrilly. "When have we been together? Not in years. You have been married to your

business. I am only your housekeeper, and Graham's mother. And even Graham you are trying to take away

Downstairs, thoughts that were almost great had formulated themselves in his mind; that to die that others

might live might be better than to live oneself; that he loved his country, although he had been shamefaced

about it; that America was really the meltingpot of the world, and that, perhaps, only the white flame of war

But Natalie made all these thoughts tawdry. She cheapened them. She found in him nothing fine; therefore

there was probably nothing fine in him. He went away, to lie awake most of the night.

But, with the breaking off of diplomatic relations, matters remained for a time at a standstill. Natalie dried her

eyes and ordered some new clothes, and saw rather more of Rodney Page than was good for her.

With the beginning of February the country house was far enough under way for it to be promised for June,

and Natalie, the fundamentals of its decoration arranged for, began to haunt oldfurniture shops,

"Not that your taste is not right, Natalie," he explained. "It is exquisite. But these fellows are liars and cheats,

Trailing along was a fairly accurate phrase. There was scarcely a day now when Natalie's shining car, with its

two men in livery, did not draw up before Rodney's office building, or stand, as unostentatiously as a fire

engine, not too near the entrance of his club. Clayton, going in, had seen it there once or twice, and had

smiled rather grimly. He considered its presence there in questionable taste, but he felt no uneasiness.

Determined as he was to give Natalie such happiness as was still in him to give, he never mentioned these

But a day came, early in February, which was to mark a change in the relationship between Natalie and

It started simply enough. They had lunched together at a downtown hotel, and then went to look at rugs.

Rodney had found her rather obdurate as to old rugs. They were still arguing the matter in the limousine.

"I just don't like to think of all sorts of dirty Turks and Arabs having used them," she protested. "Slept on

"But the colors, Natalie dear! The old faded 'coppertones, the dullblues, the deadrose! There is a beauty

about age, you know. Lovely as you are, you'll be even lovelier as an old woman."

He turned and looked at her critically. No slightest aid that she had given her beauty missed his eyes, the

delicate artificial lights in her hair, her eyebrows drawn to a hair's breadth and carefully arched, the touch of

rouge under her eyes and on the lobes of her ears. But she was beautiful, no matter what art had augmented

her real prettiness. She was a charming, finished product, from her veil and hat to her narrowly shod feet. He

liked finished things, well done. He liked the glaze on a porcelain; he liked the perfect lacquering on the

Chinese screen he had persuaded Natalie to buy; he preferred wood carved into the fine lines of Sheraton to

A Sheraton sideboard was art. Even certain forms of Colonial mahogany were art, although he was not fond

of them. And Natalie was art. Even if she represented the creative instincts of her dressmaker and her

milliner, and not her own he did not like a Louis XV sofa the less that it had not carved itself.

Possibly Natalie appealed then to his collective instinct, he had not analyzed it. He only knew that he liked

being with her, and he was not annoyed, certainly, by the fact that he knew their constant proximity was

"You are very beautiful," he said with his appraising glance full on her. "You are quite the loveliest woman I

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't mean to say that, exactly. Of course, that fact is that I'm rather glad you are

not a debutante. You would be giving me odds and ends of dances if you were, you know, and shifting me as

"As it is," he said, rather rapidly, "you give me a great deal of happiness. I can't say all I would like to, but

just being with you Natalie, I wonder if you know how much it means to me to see you every day."

Curiously enough, with the mere putting it into words, his feeling for her seemed to grow. He was even

somewhat excited. He bent toward her, his eyes on her face, and caught one of her gloved hands. He was no

longer flirting with a pretty woman. He was in real earnest. But Natalie was still flirting.

"Do you want to know why I like to be with you? Because of course I do, or I shouldn't be."

"Because you are sane and sensible. You believe, as I do, in going on as normally as possible. All these

people who go around glooming because there is a war across the Atlantic! They are so tiresome. Good

"Good God, Natalie, I'm only sensible because I have to be. Not about the war. I'm not talking about that.

She was greatly thrilled and quite untouched. It was a pleasant little game, and she held all the winning cards.

And by her very "we" let him understand that the plight was not his but theirs. They were to suffer on, she

But although he was profoundly affected, his infatuation was as spurious as her pretense of one. He was a

dilettante in love, as he was in art. His aesthetic sense, which would have died of an honest passion, fattened

on the very hopelessness of his beginning an affair with Natalie. Confronted just then with the privilege of

Since no such privilege was to be his, however, he found a deep satisfaction in considering himself

hopelessly in love with her. He was profoundly sorry for himself. He saw himself a tragic figure, hopeless

and wretched. He longed for the unattainable; he held up empty hands to the stars, and by so mimicking the

And Natalie, who would not have sacrificed this new thrill for anything real in the world, replied:

There was real earnestness in his voice when he spoke. He had dramatized himself by that time.

There were other conversations after that. About marriage, for instance, which Rodney broadly characterized

"When a man has married, and had children, he has fulfilled his duty to the State. That's all marriage is duty

"Not at all. I admire faithfulness. It's rare enough for admiration. No. I'm recognizing facts. Don't you

suppose even dear old Clay likes a pretty woman? Of course he does. It's a total difference of viewpoint,

"All this economic freedom of women is going to lead to other freedoms, you know."

"What freedoms?" "The right to live wherever they please. One liberty brings another, you know. Women

used to marry for a home, for some one to keep them. Now they needn't, but they have to live just the

It was cheap. It was the old game of talking around conversational corners, of whispering behind mental

doors. It was insidious, dangerous, and tantalizing. It made between them a bond of lowered voices, of being

on the edge of things. Their danger was as spurious as their passion, but Natalie, without humor and without

When war was not immediately declared the rector, who on the Sunday following that eventful Saturday of

the President's speech to Congress had preached a rousing call to arms, began to feel a bit sheepish about it.

"War or no war, my dear," he said to Delight, "it made them think for as much as an hour. And I can change

"Secondhand stuff!" she scoffed. "You with your old sermons, and Mother with my old dresses! But it was a

good sermon," she added. "I have hardly been civil to that German laundress since."

"Do you love them? You know perfectly well that the moment you get on the other side, if you do, you'll be

jerking the cross off your collar and bullying some wretched soldier to give you his gun."

It was February then, and they were sitting in the parish house. Delight had been filling out Sundayschool

reports to parents, an innovation she detested. For a little while there was only the scratching of her pen to be

heard and an occasional squeal from the church proper, where the organ was being repaired. The rector sat

back in his chair, his fingertips together, and whistled noiselessly, a habit of his when he was disturbed. Now

"Just a minute. That wretched little Simonton girl has been absent three Sundays out of four. And on the

fourth one she said she had a toothache and sat outside on the steps. Well, daddy?"

"Very little." She looked at him with frank eyes. "He has changed somehow, daddy. When we do meet he is

He fell back on his noiseless whistling. And Delight, who knew his every mood, got up and perched herself

"Don't you get to thinking things," she said. And slipped an arm around his neck.

"I'll tell you about that," she broke in, bravely. "I suppose, if he'd cared for me at all, I'd have been crazy

about him. It isn't because he's good looking. I well, I don't know why. I just know, as long as I can

remember, I however, that's not important. He thinks I'm a nice little thing and lets it go at that. It's a good

"I'm happier than I would be trying to make him fall in love with me. Oh, you needn't be shocked. It can be

done. Lots of girls do it. It isn't any moral sense that keeps me from it, either. It's just pride."

"And there's another angle to it. I wouldn't marry a man who hasn't got a mind of his own. Even if I had the

chance, which I haven't. That silly mother of his she is silly, daddy, and selfish Do you know what she is

Her tone was light, but the rector felt that arm around his neck tighten. He surmised a depth of feeling that

"Everybody says so. She thinks that if he is married, and there is a war, he won't want to go if he has a wife."

She was silent for a moment. "Marion will drive him straight to the devil, daddy."

The rector reached up and took her hand. She cared more than she would admit, he saw. She had thought the

thing out, perhaps in the long night when he slept placidly. Thought and suffered, he surmised. And again

"I suppose it is hard for a father to understand how any one can know his little girl and not love her. Or be the

"Don't you worry," she said cheerfully. "I had to make an ideal for myself about somebody. Every girl does.

Sometimes it's the plumber. It doesn't really matter who it is, so you can pin your dreams to him. The only

She went back to her little cards, but some ten minutes later the rector, lost in thought, heard the scratching of

"Did you ever think, daddy," she said, "of the influence women have over men? Look at the Spencers. Mrs.

The rector was startled. He had an instant vision of Clayton Spencer, tall, composed, handsome, impeccably

clothed. He saw him in the setting that suited him best, the quiet elegance of his home. Clayton unhappy!

Nonsense. But he was uneasy, too. That very gravity which he had noticed lately, that was certainly not the

gravity of an entirely happy man. Clayton had changed, somehow. Was there trouble there? And if there

The rector, who reduced most wretchedness to terms of dollars and cents, of impending bills and small

"I wonder what you would do," she observed, "if mother just lay around all day, and had her hair done, and

got new clothes, and never thought a thought of her own, and just used you as a sort of walking

"I'll tell you what you'd do," she persisted. "You'd fall in love with somebody else, probably. Or else you'd

He was extremely shocked at that, and a little hurt. It took her some time to establish cheerful relations again,

and a very humble apology. But her words stuck in the rector's mind. He made a note for a sermon, with the

text: "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."

He went quietly into the great stone building and sat down. The organist was practicing the Introit anthem,

The rector leaned back, and listened to the music. He often did that when he had a sermon in his mind. It was

peaceful and quiet. Hard to believe, in that peace of great arches and swelling music, that across the sea at

that moment men were violating that fundamental law of the church, "Thou shalt not kill."

The woman turned her bead, and he saw that it was Audrey Valentine. He watched her with kindly,

speculative eyes. Selfreliant, frivolous Audrey, sitting alone in the church she had so casually attended

surely that was one of the gains of war. People all came to it ultimately. They held on with both hands as long

as they could, and then they found their grasp growing feeble and futile, and they turned to the Great

The organist had ceased. Audrey was kneeling now. The rector, eyes on the gleaming cross above the altar,

"Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech Thee, from the hands of our enemies; that we, being armed with

Audrey was coming down the aisle. She did not see him. She had, indeed, the fixed eyes of one who still

looks inward. She was very pale, but there was a new look of strength in her face, as of one who has won a

"To glorify Thee, who are the only giver of all victory, through the merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,"

On the last day of February Audrey came home from her shorthand class and stood wearily by the window,

too discouraged even to remove her hat. The shorthand was a failure; the whole course was a failure. She had

not the instinct for plodding, for the meticulous attention to detail that those absurd, irrational lines and hooks

She could not even spell! And an idiot of an instructor had found fault with the large square band she wrote,

as being uncommercial. Uncommercial! Of course it was. So was she uncommercial. She had dreamed a

dream of usefulness, but after all, why was she doing it? We would never fight. Here we were, saying to

She might go to England. They needed women there. But not untrained women. Not, she thought

contemptuously, women whose only ability lay in playing bridge, or singing French chansons with no

After all, the only world that was open to her was her old world. It liked her. It even understood her. It

"I'm a fool," she reflected bitterly. "I'm not happy, and I'm not useful. I might as well play. It's all I can do."

But her real hunger was for news of Clayton. Quite suddenly he had stopped dropping in on his way

uptown. He had made himself the most vital element in her life, and then taken himself out of it. At first she

had thought he might be ill. It seemed too cruel otherwise. But she saw his name with increasing frequency in

the newspapers. It seemed to her that every relief organization in the country was using his name and his

He had tired of her, probably. She had nothing to give, had no right to give anything. And, of course, he could

not know how much he had meant to her, of courage to carry on. How the memory of his big, solid,

dependable figure bad helped her through the bad hours when the thought of Chris's defection had left her

She told herself that the reason she wanted to see Natalie was because she had neglected her shamefully.

Perhaps that was what was wrong with Clay; perhaps he felt that, by avoiding Natalie, she was putting their

friendship on a wrong basis. Actually, she had reached that point all loving women reach, when even to hear

She took unusual pains with her dress that afternoon, and it was a very smart, slightly rouged and rather

"I thought you must have left town," she said. "But you look as though you'd been having a rest cure."

"There are all sorts of stories going about. That you're going into a hospital; that you're learning to fly; that

"Just because I find it stupid going about without a man!" Natalie eyed her shrewdly, but there was no

selfconsciousness in Audrey's face. If the stories were true, and there had been another woman, she was

"At least Chris is in France. I have to go, when I go, without Clay. And there is no excuse whatever."

"Not at night. He is simply obstinate. He says he is tired. I don't really mind any more. He is so hatefully

"My dear!" Natalie drew her chair closer and lowered her voice. "What can one do with a man who simply

lives war? He spends hours over the papers. He's up if the Allies make a gain, and impossible if they don't. I

can tell by the very way he slams the door of his room when he comes home what the news is. It's dreadful."

"You are not married to him. I suppose the war is important, but I don't want it twentyfour hours a day. I

Audrey's mouth twitched. After all, what was the good of talking to Natalie. She would only be resentful.

She had Natalie on happy ground there. For a halfhour she looked at blueprints and watercolor sketches,

heard Rodney's taste extolled, listened to plans for a houseparty which she gathered was, rather belatedly, to

"This is his wife. This is the woman he loves. He has had a child by her. He is building this house for her. He

goes into her room as Chris came into mine. And she is not good enough. She is not good enough."

Now that she had seen Natalie, she knew why she had not seen her before. She was jealous of her. Jealous

and contemptuous. Suddenly she hated Natalie. She hated her because she was Clayton Spencer's wife, with

all that that implied. She hated her because she was unworthy of him. She hated her because she loved Clay,

Audrey sat back in her chair and saw that she had traveled a long way along a tragic road. For the first time in

her brave and reckless life she was frightened. She was even trembling. She lighted a cigaret from the stand at

Natalie chattered on, and Audrey gave her the occasional nod that was all she needed. She thought,

"Does he know about her? Is he still fooled? She is almost beautiful. Rodney is falling in love with her,

probably. Does he know that? Will he care terribly if he finds it out? She looks cold, but one can't tell, and

"Why not stay on to dinner? Graham is seldom home, and we can talk, if Clay doesn't."

The temptation to see Clay again was strong in Audrey. But suddenly she knew that she did not want to see

them together, in the intimacy of their home. She did not want to sit between them at dinner, and then go

away, leaving them there together. And something fundamentally honest in her told her that she had no right

"I'll come another time, if you'll ask me. Not today," she said. And left rather precipitately. It hurt her,

rather, to have Natalie, with an impulsive gesture, gather the flowers out of a great jar and insist on her

She walked home. The fresh air, after Natalie's flowerscented, overheated room, made her more rational.

She knew where she stood, anyhow. She was in love with Clayton Spencer. She had, she reflected cynically,

been in love before. A number of times before. She almost laughed aloud. She had called those things love,

Then her eyes filled with unexpected tears. She had always wanted some one to make her happy. Now she

wanted to make some one happy. She cared nothing for the cost. She would put herself out of it altogether.

He was not happy. Any one could see that. He had everything, but he was not happy. If he belonged to her,

Suddenly she remembered Chris. Perhaps she did not know how to hold a man's love. She had not held him.

He had protested that she was the only woman he had ever loved, but all the time there had been that other

She was ashamed of that instantly. After all, Chris was doing a man's part now. She was no longer angry with

him. She had written him that, over and over, in the long letters she had made a point of sending him. Only,

But Chris, after all, was not to come back. He would never come back again. The cable was there when she

She had put the flowers on the table and had raised her hands to unpin her hat when she saw it. She read it

with a glance first, then slowly, painfully, her heart contracted as if a band had squeezed it. She stood very

still, not so much stricken as horrified, and her first conscious thought was of remorse, terrible, gasping

remorse. All that afternoon, while she had been hating Natalie and nursing her love for Clay, Chris had been

She felt very tired, but not faint. It seemed dreadful, indeed, that she could be standing there, full of life,

while Chris was dead. Such grief as she felt was for him, not for herself. He had loved life so, even when he

cheapened it. He had wanted to live and now he was dead. She, who did not care greatly to live, lived on, and

All at once she felt terribly alone. She wanted some one with her. She wanted to talk it all out to some one

who understood. She wanted Clay. She said to herself that she did not want him because she loved him. All

love was dead in her now. She wanted him because he was strong and understanding. She made this very

clear to herself, because she had a morbid fancy that Chris might be watching her. There were people who

believed that sort of thing. To her excited fancy it seemed as though Chris's cynical smile might flash out

She knew she was not being quite rational. Which was strange, because she felt so strong, and because the

voice with which she called Clayton's number was so steady. She knew, too, that she was no longer in love

with Clay, because his steady voice over the telephone left her quite calm and unmoved.

"Chris has been killed," she replied, and hung up the receiver. Then she sat down to wait, and to watch for

Clayton found her there, collapsed in her chair, a slim, grayfaced girl with the rouge giving a grotesque

vitality to her bloodless cheeks. She got up very calmly and gave him the cablegram. Then she fainted in a

The new munition plant was nearing completion. Situated on the outskirts of the city, it spread over a vast

area of what had once been waste land. Of the three long buildings, two were already in operation and the

To Clayton Spencer it was the realization of a dream. He never entered the great highwalled enclosure

without a certain surprise at the ease with which it had all been accomplished, and a thrill of pride at the

achievement. He found the work itself endlessly interesting. The casts, made of his own steel, lying in huge

rusty heaps in the yard; the little cars which carried them into the plant; the various operatons by which the

great lathes turned them out, smooth and shining, only to lose their polish when, heated again, they were

ready for the ponderous hammer to close their gaping jaws. The delicacy of the work appealed to him, the

machining to a thousandth of an inch, the fastidious making of the fuses, tiny things almost microscopic, and

requiring the delicate touch of girls, most of whom had been watchmakers and jewelryworkers.

And with each carload of the finished shells that left the plant he felt a fine glow of satisfaction. The output

was creeping up. Soon they would be making ten thousand shells a day. And every shell was one more

chance for victory against the Hun. It became an obsession with him to make more, ever more.

As the work advanced, he found an unexpected enthusiasm in Graham. Here was something to be done, a

new thing. The steel mill had been long established. Its days went on monotonously. The boy found it noisy,

dirty, without appeal to his imagination. But the shell plant was different. There were new problems to face,

He was, however, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the break with Germany was the final step that

However, the break had done something. It had provided him with men from the local National Guard to

police the plant, and he found the government taking a new interest, an official interest, in his safety. Agents

from the Military Intelligence and the Department of Justice scanned his employment lists and sent agents

into the plant. In the building where men and women were hired, each applicant passed a desk where they

were quietly surveyed by two unobstrusive gentlemen in indifferent business suits who eyed them carefully.

Around the fuse department, where all day girls and women handled guncotton and highexplosive powder, a

Early in March Clayton put Graham in charge of the first of the long buildings to be running full, and was

rewarded by a new look in the boy's face. He was almost startled at the way he took it.

"I'll do my very best, sir," he said, rather huskily. "If I can't fight, I can help put the swine out of business,

He was by that time quite sure that Natalie had extracted a promise of some sort from the boy. On the rare

He was almost always at Marion Hayden's in the evenings, and from things he let fall, Clayton gathered that

the irresponsible group which centered about Marion was, in the boy's own vernacular, rather "shot to

pieces." Tommy Hale had gone to England to join the Royal Flying Corps. One or two of them were in

Canada, trying to enlist there, and one evening Graham brought home to dinner an inordinately tall and thin

youngster in the kilts of a ScotchCanadian regiment, with an astounding length of thin leg below his skirts,

"Look like a fool, I know, sir," said the tall individual sheepishly. "Just had to get in it somehow. No

And Clayton had noticed, with a thrill of sympathy, how wistfully Graham eyed the debonnair young Scot by

adoption, and how Buckham had hovered over him, filling his plate and his glass. Even Graham noticed

"Old boy looks as though he'd like to kiss you, Sid," he said. "It's the petticoats. Probably thinks you're a

Clayton was still determined that Graham should fight the thing out for himself. He wished, sometimes, that

he knew Marion Hayden's attitude. Was she like Natalie? Would she, if the time came, use her undeniable

influence for or against? And there again he resented the influence of women in the boy's life. Why couldn't

He remembered his father, and how his grandmother, in '61, had put a Bible into one pocket and a housewife

into another, and had sent him off to war. Had the fiber of our women weakened since then? But he knew it

had not. All day, in the new plant, women were working with highexplosives quite calmly. And there were

Every mental path, those days, somehow led eventually to Audrey. She was the lighted window at the end of

Graham was, as a matter of fact, trying to work out his own salvation. He blundered, as youth always

blunders, and after a violent scene with Marion Hayden he made an attempt to break off his growing intimacy

with Anna Klein to find, as many a man had before him, that the sheer brutality of casting off a loving

The scene with Marion came one Sunday in the Spencer house, with Natalie asleep upstairs after luncheon,

and Clayton walking off a sense of irritation in the park. He did not like the Hayden girl. He could not fathom

Natalie's change of front with regard to Graham and the girl. He had gone out, leaving them together, and

"That's a lie, Graham. I called the plant. I'll tell you where you were. You were out with a girl. You were

"It isn't like you to be jealous, Marion. I let you run around all the time with other fellows, but the minute I

"Jealous!" She laughed nastily. But she knew she was losing her temper; and brought herself up short. Let

him think she was jealous. What really ailed her was deadly fear lest her careful plan go astray. She was

She knew then that she was wrong, but it was her chance to assail Delight and she took it.

"That child!" she continued contemptuously. "Don't you suppose I've seen how she looks at you? I'm not

afraid of her. You are too much a man of the world to let her put anything over on you. At least, I thought you

"It was not Delight," he said doggedly. "And I don't think we need to bring her into this at all. She's not in

He went to the window and stood for a moment looking out. Then he went slowly back to her.

"I'm not good enough for you to be engaged to, Marion," he said. "I don't you want to call it a day?"

She was really terrified then. She went white and again, miserably, he mistook her agitation for something

"Not if you still want me. I only mean I'm a pretty poor sort. You ought to have the best, and God help this

He drew himself up in boyish bravado. He could not tell her the truth. It opened up too hideous a vista. Even

his consciousness of the fact that the affair with Anna was still innocent did not dull his full knowledge of

"You can tell me. You can tell me anything. I know a lot, you see. I'm no silly kitten. If you're in a fix, I'll

help you. I don't care what it is, I'll help you. I?I'm crazy about you, Graham."

"Look here, Marion," he said, roughly, "you've got to do one of two things. Either marry me or let me go."

"Oh don't." He threw up his arm. "I want you. You know that. Marry me tomorrow."

"I will not. Do you think I'm going to come into this family and have you cut off? Don't you suppose I know

that Clayton Spencer hates the very chair I sit on? He'll come and beg me to marry you, some day. Until

And again he felt desperately his powerlessness to loosen the coils that were closing round him, fetters forged

He was alarmed then, and lapsed into dogged silence. His anxiety had forced into speech thoughts that had

never before been articulate. He was astounded to hear himself uttering them, although with the very

"Sorry, Marion," he muttered. "I didn't mean all that. I'm excited. That's all."

"You've been very cruel, Graham," she said. "I've been selfish. very girl who is terribly in love is selfish. I am

"Don't!" he begged. "Don't let me go. I'll just go to the dogs. If you really care?"

"Care!" she said softly. And as he buried his head in her lap she stroked his hair softly. Her eyes, triumphant,

surveyed the long room, with its satinpaneled walls, its French furniture, its long narrow giltframed

Some day all this would be hers. For this she would exchange the untidy and imitation elegance of her

Graham made an attempt to free himself the next day. He was about to move his office to the new plant, and

"Look here, Anna," he said impulsively. "You know things can't on indefinitely, the way we are now. You

"I won't stay here if you go," she said finally. I hate Mr. Weaver. I'm afraid of him. I oh, don't leave me,

Graham. Don't. I haven't anybody but you. I haven't any home not a real home. You ought to see him these

days." She always referred to her father as "him." "He's dreadful. I'm only happy when I'm here with you."

"I've told you," he said. "Things can't go on as they are. You know well enough what I mean. I'm older than

you are, Anna. God knows I don't want any harm to come to you through me. But, if we continue to be

"I'm not blaming you." She looked at him honestly. "I'd just rather have you care about me than marry

He kissed her, with a curious mingling of exultation and despair. He left her there when he went away that

afternoon, a rather downcast young figure, piling up records and cardindexes, and following him to the door

with worshiping, anxious eyes. Later on in the afternoon Joey, wandering in from Clayton's office on one of

his selfconstituted observation tours, found her crying softly while she wiped her typewriter, preparatory to

"What are you doing here, anyhow?" she demanded, angrily. "You're always hanging around, spying on me."

"Look here," he said, his youngold face twitching with anxiety. "You get out from under, kid. You take my

"Oh, very well," he said sharply. "But you might take a word of warning, anyhow. That cousin of yours has

"Me and Mr. Clayton Spencer," said Joey, smartly, and went out, banging the door cheerfully.

Anna climbed the hill that night wearily, but with a sense of relief that Rudolph had not been waiting for her

at the yard gate. She was in no mood to thrust and parry with him. She wondered, rather dully, what mischief

Rudolph was up to. He was gaining a tremendous ascendency over her father, she knew. Herman was

spending more and more of his evenings away from home, creaking up the stairs late at night, shoes in hand,

"Out?" she asked Katie, sitting by the fire with the evening paper. Conversation in the cottage was almost

"Ate early," Katie returned. "Rudolph was here, too. I'm going to quit if I've got to cook for that sneak any

"I'm not hungry." She ate her supper, however, and undressed by the fire. Then she went upstairs and sat by

her window in the gathering night. She was suffering acutely. Graham was tired of her. He wanted to get rid

of her. Probably he had a girl somewhere else, a lady. Her idea of the life of such a girl had been gathered

"The sort that has her breakfast in bed," she muttered, "and has her clothes put on her by somebody. Her

Herman had been a difficult proposition for Rudolph to handle. His innate caution, his respect for law and,

under his bullying exterior, a certain physical cowardice, made him slow to move in the direction Rudolph

was urging. He was controversial. He liked to argue over the beer and schnitzel Rudolph bought. And

Rudolph himself was all eagerness and zeal. It was his very zeal that was his danger, although it brought him

slavish followers. He was contemptuous, illtempered, and impatient, but, of limited intelligence himself, he

understood for that very reason the mental processes of those he would lead. There was a certain simplicity

even in his cunning. With Herman he was a ferret driving out of their hidingplaces every evil instinct that

lay dormant. Under his goading, Herman was becoming savage, sullen, and potentially violent.

He was confused that night, heavy with fatigue and with Rudolph's steady talk in his ear. He was tired of

pondering great questions, tired of hearing about the Spencers and the money they were making.

Anna's clothing was scattered about the room, and he frowned at it. She spent too much money on her

He stooped down to gather up his shoes, and his ear thus brought close to the table was conscious in the

silence of a faint rhythmical sound. He stood up and looked about. Then he moved the newspaper on the

table. Underneath it, forgotten in her anxiety and trouble, lay the little gold watch.

He picked it up, still following his train of thought. It fitted into the evening's inflammable proceedings. So,

with such trinkets as this, capital would silence the cry of labor for its just share in the products of its skill

and strength! It would bribe, and cheaply. Ten dollars, perhaps, that ticking insult. For ten dollars

He held it close to his spectacles. Ah, but it was not so cheap. It came from the best shop in the city. He

weighed it carefully in his hand, and in so doing saw the monogram. A doubt crept into his mind, a cold and

chilling fear. Since when had the Spencer plant taken to giving watches for Christmas? The hill girls who

worked as stenographers in the plant; they came in often enough and he did not remember any watches, or

any mention of watches. His mind, working slowly, recalled that never before had he seen the watch near at

hand. And he went into a slow and painful calculation. Fifty dollars at least it had cost. A hundred

Suddenly he knew that Anna had lied to him. One of two things, then: either she had spent money for it,

unknown to him, or some one had given it to her. There was, in his mind, not much difference in degree

He picked the watch up between his broad thumb and forefinger, and then, his face a cold and dreadful mask,

Clayton Spencer was facing with characteristic honesty a situation that he felt was both hopeless and

He was hopelessly in love with Audrey. He knew now that he had known it for a long time. Here was no

slender sentiment, no thin romance. With every fiber of him, heart and soul and body, he loved her and

wanted her. There was no madness about it, save the fact itself, which was mad enough. It was not the single

attraction of passion, although he recognized that element as fundamental in it. It was the craving of a strong

He knew that, as certainly as he knew anything. He did not even question that she cared for him. It was as

though they both had passed through the doubting period without knowing it, and had arrived together at the

He rather thought, looking back, that Audrey had known it sooner than he had. She had certainly known the

night she learned of Chris's death. His terror when she fainted, the very way he had put her out of his arms

when she opened her eyes those had surely told her. Yet, had Chris's cynical spirit been watching, there had

There was, between them, nothing now. He had given way to the people who flocked to her with sympathy,

had called her up now and then, had sent her a few books, some flowers. But the hopelessness of the situation

held him away from her. Once or twice, at first, he had called her on the telephone and had waited, almost

trembling, for her voice over the wire, only to ask her finally, in a voice chilled with repression, how she was

feeling, or to offer a car for her to ride in the park. And her replies were equally perfunctory. She was well.

She was still studying, but it was going badly. She was too stupid to learn all those pothooks.

Her voice had been wistful, and it had been a moment before he had himself enough in hand to reply,

"I saw Audrey today," she said once. "She is not wearing mourning. It's bad taste, I should say. When one

"You needn't bite me, you know. He went, and had about as much interest in this war as as "

"As you have," he finished. And had gone out, leaving Natalie staring after him.

He was more careful after that, but the situation galled him. He was no hypocrite, but there was no need of

wounding Natalie unnecessarily. And that, after all, was the crux of the whole situation. Natalie. It was not

Natalie's fault that he had found the woman of his heart too late. He had no thought of blame for her. In

decency, there was only one thing to do. He could not play the lover to her, but then he had not done that for

Perhaps, in all her futile life, Natalie had, for all her complaining, never been so content in her husband as in

those early spring months when she had completely lost him. He made no demands whatever. In the small

attentions, which he had never neglected, he was even more assiduous. He paid her everincreasing bills

without comment. He submitted, in those tense days when every day made the national situation more

precarious, to hours of discussion as to the country house, to complaints as to his own lack of social instinct,

and to that new phase of her attitude toward Marion Hayden that left him baffled and perplexed.

Then, on the Sunday when he left Graham and Marion together at the house, he met Audrey quite by accident

in the park. He was almost incredulous at first. She came like the answer to prayer, a little tired around the

eyes, showing the strain of the past weeks, but with that same easy walk and unconscious elegance that

She was not alone. There was a tall blonde girl beside her, hideously dressed, but with a pleasant, shallow

"Please don't run!" she said. "There are people looking. It would be so conspicuous."

"Run!" he replied. He stood looking down at her, and at something in his eyes her smile died.

For a moment he could not speak. After all those weeks of hunger for her there was no power in him to

dissemble. He felt a mad, boyish impulse to hold out his arms to her, Malacca stick, gloves, and all!

"I shall walk with you," she said, with a flash of her old impertinence. "You have not asked me to, but I shall,

anyhow. Only don't call this luck. It isn't at all. I walk here every Sunday, and every Sunday I say to myself

he will think he needs exercise. Then he will walk, and the likeliest place for him to go is the park. Good

She glanced up at him, but his face was set and unsmiling. "Don't pay any attention to me, Clay. I'm a little

mad, probably. You see" she hesitated "I need my friends just now. And when the very best of them all

"I'm almost through. Don't worry! But I was walking along before I met Clare I'll tell you about her

presentl and I was saying to myself that I thought God owed me something. I didn't know just what.

Happiness, maybe. I've been careless and all that, but I've never been wicked. And yet I can look back, and

"Five fingers!" she repeated, "and I am twentyeight. The percentage is pretty low, you know."

"Oh! You feel that way, too? I mean as I do, that it's all hardly worth while? But you seem to have

"You can still mold your life, Audrey dear. You have had a bad time, but with all reverence to Chris's

memory his going out of it, under the circumstances, is a grief. But it doesn't spell shipwreck."

"Don't you think you will, some time? Some nice young chap who will worship you all the days of his life?

"Good God!" he burst out, his restraint suddenly gone. "What do you want me to say? What can I say, except

that I want you to be happy? Don't you think I've gone over it all, over and over again? I'd give my life for the

right to tell you the things I think, but I haven't that right. Even this little time together is wrong, the way

"I'm sorry, Clay. I know. I am lust reckless today. You know I am wreckless. It's my vice. But sometimes

But he could not talk about the mill just then. They walked along in silence, and after a little he felt her touch

"Wouldn't it be better just to have it out?" she asked, wistfully. "That wouldn't hurt anybody, would it?"

"I'm not," she said proudly. "I sometimes think oh, I think such a lot these days that if we talked these

things over, I'd recover my friend. I've lost him now, you see. And I'm so horribly lonely, Clay."

"Lost him," she repeated. "I've lost my friend, and I haven't gained anything. It didn't hurt anybody for us to

meet now and then, Clay. You know that. I wish you would understand," she added impatiently. "I only want

to go back to things as they were. I want you to come in now and then. We used to talk about all sorts of

things, and I miss that. Plenty of people come, but that's different. It's only your occasional companionship I

"You say you have missed the companionship," he said rather unsteadily. "I wonder if you think I haven't?"

"I know you have, my dear. And that is why I want you to come. To come without being afraid that I expect

He smiled down at her, rather wryly, at her straight courageous figure, her brave eyes, meeting his so directly.

How like her it all was, the straightforwardness of it, the absence of coquetry. And once again he knew, not

only that he loved her with all the depths of him, of his strong body and his vigorous mind, but that she was

his woman. The one woman in the world for him. It was as though all his life he had been searching for her,

and he had found her, and it was too late. She knew it, too. It was in her very eyes.

"I have wanted to come, terribly," he said finally. And when she held out her hand to him, he bent down and

"Then that's settled," she said, in a matteroffact tone. "And now I'll tell you about Clare. I'm rather proud

"Do you remember the night I got a hundred dollars from you? And later on, that I asked you for work in

"That was the girl. You see, she rather holds onto me. It's awful in a way, too. It looks as though I am posing

as magnanimous. I'm not, Clay. If I had cared awfully it would have been different. But then, if I had cared

"Well, I do, rather. But that's not the point. Sometimes when I am alone I have wicked thoughts, you know,

Clay. I'm reckless, and sometimes I think maybe there is only one life, and why not get happiness out of it. I

realize that, but for some little kink in my brain, I might be in Clare's position. So I don't turn her out. She's a

poor, cheap thing, but well, she is fond of me. If I had children it's funny, but I rather mother her! And

She was sensitive to his every thought, and she knew by the very change in the angle of his head that he was

"Troubling me! She doesn't borrow money, you know. Why, she makes more money from your plant than I

have to live on! And she brings me presents of flowers and the most awful embroidery, that she does herself."

"Not know it!" she said. "I've had to know it. I learned it pretty well, too. And don't make any mistake, Clay."

She looked up at him with her clear, understanding gaze. "Being good, decent, with a lot of people is only the

lack of temptation. Only, thank God, there are some who have the strength to withstand it when it comes."

And he read in her clear eyes her promise and her understanding; that they loved each other, that it was the

one big thing in both their lives, but that between them there would be only the secret inner knowledge of that

love. There would be no shipwreck. And for what she gave, she demanded his strength and his promise. It

He went back to her rooms with her, and she made him tea, while he built the fire in the open fireplace and

nursed it tenderly to a healthy strength. Overnursed it, she insisted. They were rather gay, indeed, and the

dangerpoint passed by safely. There was so much to discuss, she pretended. The President's unfortunate

phrase of "peace without victory"; the deportation of the Belgians, the recent leak in Washington to certain

stockbrokers, and more and more imminent, the possibility of a state of war being recognized by the

"If it comes," she said, gayly, "I shall go, of course. I shall go to France and sing them into battle. My

"I can't let you outshine me," he said. "And I don't want to think of your going over there without me. My

When Natalie roused from her nap that Sunday afternoon, it was to find Marion gone, and Graham waiting

for her in her boudoir. Through the open door she could see him pacing back and forward and something in

his face made her vaguely uneasy. She assumed the childlike smile which so often preserved her from the

"What a sleep I've had," she said, and yawned prettily. "I'll have one of your cigarets, darling, and then let's

Graham knew Natalie's idea of a walk, which was three or four blocks along one of the fashionable avenues,

with the car within hailing distance. At the end of the fourth block she always declared that her shoes

She was uncomfortable. Graham had been very queer lately. He would have long, quiet spells, and then break

out in an uncontrollable irritation, generally at the servants. But Graham did not ring for Madeleine. He

lighted a cigaret for Natalie, and standing off, surveyed her. She was very pretty. She was prettier than Toots.

That pale blue wrapper, or whatever it was, made her rather exquisite. And Natalie, curled up on her pale rose

chaise longue, set to work as deliberately to make a conquest of her son as she had ever done to conquer

"You're growing very handsome, you know, boy," she said. "Almost too handsome. A man doesn't need good

"I don't know." She reflected, eyeing her cigaret. "He presumes on them, rather. And a good many men never

"I don't know anything about it yet," he said bluntly. "And you wouldn't be really interested if I did."

"No; I'm just trying to talk straight, for once. We you and I we always talk around things. I don't know

"That's exactly what I mean, mother. You don't say father is savage. God knows he isn't that. You just say I

"You sound fearfully involved. But never mind about that. I daresay I've done something; I don't know what,

"Well, if you want to know exactly, I met her coming out of church, and it occurred to me that we were

having rather a nice luncheon, and that it would be a pity not to ask some one to come in. It was a nice

"You have been asking her here a lot lately. And yet the last time we discussed her you said she was fast.

That she wanted to marry me for my money. That people would laugh if I fell for it."

"For heaven's sake, mother," he cried, exasperated. "Don't quibble. Let's get down to facts. Does your

Natalie considered. She was afraid of too quick a surrender lest he grow suspicious. She decided to

temporize, with the affectation of frankness that had once deceived Clayton, and that still, she knew, affected

"I'll tell you exactly," she said, slowly. "At first I thought it was just an infatuation. And you really are

young, Graham, although you look and act like such a man. But I feel, now that time has gone on and you

"Remember, I am only speaking for myself. My dearest wish is to make you happy. You are all I have. But I

cannot help you very much. Your father looks at those things differently. He doesn't quite realize that you are

"That's different. You're valuable to him, naturally. I don't mean he doesn't 1ove you," she added hastily, as

Graham wheeled and stared at her. "Of course he does, in his own way. It's not my way, but then I'm only a

"I think he must be handled. If you rush at him, and demand the right to live your own life "

"Circles again," he muttered. "You've changed your mind, for some reason. What is it, mother?"

He had an uneasy thought that she might have learned of Anna. There was that day, for instance, when his

"You might be married quietly," she suggested. "Once it was done, I am sure your father would come around.

"Tm darned if I understand you," he burst out. And then, in one of his quick remorses, "I'm sorry, mother. I'm

just puzzled, that's all. But that plan's no good, anyhow. Marion won't do it. She will have to be welcome in

"She ought to be glad to come any way she can," Natalie said sharply. And found Graham's eyes on her,

"You don't want her. That's plain. But you do want her. That's not so plain. What's the answer, mother?"

And Natalie, with an irritable feeing that she had bungled somehow, got up and flung away the cigaret.

"I am trying to give you what you want," she said pettishly. "That's clear enough, I should think."

Dressing to dine at the Hayden's that night, Graham heard Clayton come in and go into his dressingroom.

He had an impulse to go over, tie in hand as he was, and put the matter squarely before his father. The

marriageurge surely a man would understand that. Even Anna, and his predicament there. Anything was

better than this constant indirectness of gaining his father's views through his mother.

Had he done so, things would have been different later. But by continual suggestion a vision of his father as

hard, detached, immovable, had been built up in his mind. He got as far as the door, hesitated, turned back.

It was Marion herself who solved the mystery of Natalie's changed attitude, when Graham told of it that

night. She sat listening, her eyes slightly narrowed, restlessly turning her engagement ring.

"Well, at least that's something," she said, noncommittally. But in her heart she knew, as one designing

woman may know another. She knew that Natalie had made Graham promise not to enlist at once, if war was

declared, and now she knew that she was desperately preparing to carry her fear for Graham a step further,

She smiled wryly. But there was triumph in the smile, too. She had them now. The time would come when

they would crawl to her to marry Graham, to keep him from going to war. Then she would make her own

There was another girl, somewhere. She had been more frightened about that than she cared to admit, even to

She used every art she knew. She deliberately inflamed him. And the vicious circle closed in about him,

Natalie and Marion and Anna Klein. And to offset them, only Delight Haverford, at evening prayer in Saint

Luke's, and voicing a tiny petition for him, that he might walk straight, that he might find peace, even if that

Herman Klein, watch between forefinger and thumb, climbed heavily to Anna's room. She heard him pause

outside the door, and her heart almost stopped beating. She had been asleep, and rousing at his step, she had

She remembered then; she had left it below, on the table. And he was standing outside her door. She heard

him scratching a match, striking it against the panel of her door. For so long as it would take the match to

She leaped out of the bed in a panic of fear. The hall, like the room, was dark, and she felt his ponderous

"I will not." She tried to keep her voice steady. "I've got to work, if you haven't. I've got to have my sleep."

Her tone rose, hysterically. "If you think you can stay out half the night, and guzzle beer, and then come here

"You are already up," he said, in a voice slowed and thickened by rage. "You will come downstairs."

He turned away and descended the creaking stairs again. She listened for the next move, but he made none.

She was halfmaddened with terror by that time, and she ran to the window. But it was high. Even if she

could have dropped out, and before she could put on enough clothing to escape in, he would be back again,

his rage the greater for the delay. She slipped into a kimono, and her knees giving way under her she went

down the stairs. Herman was waiting. He moved under the lamp, and she saw that he held the watch,

"I like that!" she blustered, trying to gain time. "I guess it's time they gave me something I've worked hard

"I like that. Telling me I'm lying. You ask Mr. Graham Spencer. He'll tell you."

"You scare me, father." She burst into frightened tears. "I don't know what's got into you. I do my best. I give

you all I make. I've kept this house going, and" she gained a little courage "I've had darned little thanks

"You think I believe the mill gave five thousand dollars in watches last Christmas? Tomorrow I go, with

this to Mr. Clayton Spencer, not to that degenerate son of his, and I ask him. Then I shall know."

He turned, as if about to leave her, but the alternative he offered her was too terrible.

"I had a raise. I didn't tell you. I had a raise of five dollars a week. I'm paying for it myself. Honest to heaven,

"I give all the rest to you. What do I get out of all my hard work? Just a place to live. No clothes. No fun. No

anything. All the other girls have a good time now and then, but I'm just like a prisoner. You take all I earn,

Her voice rose to a terrified squeal. Behind her she heard the slovenly servant creaking down the stairs. As

But Herman had caught her by the shoulder and was dragging her toward a corner, where there hung a leather

Katie, peering round the door of the enclosed staircase, saw him raise the strap, and Anna's white face

The strap descended. Even after Katie had rushed up the stairs and locked herself in the room, she could hear,

above Anna's cries, the thud of the strap, relentless, terrible, lusty with cruelty.

Herman went to church the next morning. Lying in her bed, too sore and bruised to move, Anna heard him

carefully polishing his boots on the side porch, heard him throw away the water after he had shaved, heard at

last the slam of the gate as he started, upright in his Sunday clothes, for church.

Only when he had reached the end of the street, and Katie could see him picking his way down the blackened

hill, did she venture up with a cup of coffee. Anna had to unlock her door to admit her, to remove a further

"You poor little rat," she said compassionately. "Gee! He was crazy. I never saw such a face. Gee!"

Anna said nothing. She dropped on the side of the bed and took the coffee, drinking gingerly through a lip

"I'm going to leave," Katie went on. "It'll be my time next. If he tries any tricks on me I'll have the law on

"Katie," Anna said, "if I leave can you get my clothes to me? I'll carry all I can."

"Good and right you are to get out," Katie agreed. "Sure I'll do it. Where do you think you'll go?"

"I thought last night I'd jump in the river. I've changed my mind, though. I'll pay him back, and not the way

"Give it to him good," assented Katie. "I'd have liked to slip some of that Paris green of his in his coffee this

To Katie's curious inquiries as to the cause of the beating Anna was now too committal.

"You've got your nerve," she said. "I wonder he didn't kill you. What's yours is his and what's his is his own!"

But Anna could not leave that morning. She lay in her bed, cold compresses on her swollen face and

shoulders, a bruised and broken thing, planning hideous reprisals. Herman made no inquiry for her. He went

stolidly about the day's work, carried in firewood and coal from the shed, inspected the garden with a view to

If Rudolph suspected anything, it was only that Anna was sulking. But later on he had reason to believe that

"I know nothing. She has not given it to me. She has been buying herself a watch."

Rudolph hesitated. The organization wanted Herman; he had had great influence with the millworkers.

Through him many things would be possible. The Spencers trusted him, too. At any time Rudolph knew they

would be glad to reinstate him, and once inside the plant, there was no limit to the mischief he could do. But

Herman was too valuable to risk. Suppose he was told now about Graham Spencer and Anna, and beat the

girl and was jailed for it? Besides, ugly as Rudolph's suspicions were, they were as yet only suspicions. He

decided to wait until he could bring Herman proof of Graham Spencer's relations with Anna. When that time

came he knew Herman. He would be clay for the potter. He, Rudolph, intended to be the potter.

Katie had an afternoon off that Sunday. When she came back that night, Herman, weary from the late hours

of Saturday, was already snoring in his bed. Anna met Katie at her door and drew her in.

"I've found a nice room, Katie whispered. "Here's the address written down. The street cars go past it. Three

Anna was ready, even to her hat. Over it she placed a dark veil, for she was badly disfigured. Then, with

Katie crying quietly, she left the house. In the flare from the Spencer furnaces Katie watched until the girl

reappeared on the twisting street below which still followed the old path that path where Herman, years

ago, had climbed through the first spring wild flowers to the cottage on the hill.

Graham was uncomfortable the next morning on his way to the mill. Anna's face had haunted him. But out of

all his confusion one thing stood out with distinctness. If he was to be allowed to marry Marion, he must have

So he went to the office, armed toward Anna with a hardness he was far from feeling.

He did not for a moment believe that it would be a lasting grief. He knew that sort of girl, he reflected, out of

his vast experience of twentytwo. They were sentimental, but they loved and forgot easily. He hoped she

would forget him; but even with that, there was a vague resentment that she should do so.

"She'll marry some millhand," he reflected, "and wear a boudoir cap, and have a lot of children who need

Anna was not in her office. Her coat and hat were not there. He was surprised, somewhat relieved. It was out

of his hands, then; she had gone somewhere else to work. Well, she was a good stenographer. Somebody was

Clayton, finding him shorthanded, sent Joey over to help him pack up his office belongings, the fittings of

his desk, his personal papers, the Japanese prints and rugs Natalie had sent after her single visit to the boy's

new working quarters. And, when Graham came back from luncheon, Joey had a message for him.

"Lady called up, from a pay phone. She left her number and said she'd wait." Joey lowered his voice

He was extremely resentful when Graham sent him away on an errand. And Graham himself frowned as he

called the number on the pad. It was like a girl, this breaking off clean and then telephoning, instead of letting

the thing go, once and for all. But his face changed as he heard Anna's brief story over the wire.

"Of course I'll come," he said. "I'm pretty busy, but I can steal a halfhour. Don't you worry. We'll fix it up

He was more concerned than deeply anxious when he rang off. It was unfortunate, that was all. And the

father was a German swine, and ought to be beaten himself. To think that his Christmas gift had brought her

He was vaguely uneasy, however. He had a sense of a situation being forced on him. He knew, too, that

Clayton was waiting for him at the new plant. But Anna's trouble, absurd as its cause seemed to him, was his

It ceased to be absurd, however, when he saw her discolored features. It would be some time before she could

even look for another situation. Her face was a swollen mask, and since such attraction as she had had for

him had been due to a sort of evanescent prettiness of youth, he felt a repulsion that he tried his best to

"You poor little thing!" he said. "He's a brute. I'd like " He clenched his fists. "Well, I got you into it. I'm

She bad lowered her veil quickly, and he felt easier. The telephone booth was in the corner of a quiet hotel,

"I'll see you through," he repeated. "Don't you worry about anything. Just lie low."

"I can give you money; that's the least I can do. Until you are able to work again." And as she drew away,

"We'll call it a loan, if that makes you feel better. You haven't anything, have you?"

She was still weak, he saw, and he led her into the deserted cafe. He took a highball himself, not because he

wanted it, but because she refused to drink, at first. He had never before had a drink in the morning, and he

felt a warm and reckless glow to his very fingertips. Bending toward her, while the waiter's back was

"I'll come round to take you out now and then, in the evenings. I don't want you to sit alone in that forsaken

boardinghouse and mope." He drew out a billfold, and extracted some notes. "Don't be silly," he protested,

as she drew back. "It's the only way I can get back my selfrespect. You owe it to me to let me do it."

She was not hard to persuade. Anything was better than going back to the cottage on the hill, and to that

heavy brooding figure, and the strap on the wall. But the taking of the money marked a new epoch in the

girl's infatuation. It bought her. She did not know it, nor did he. But hitherto she had been her own, earning

her own livelihood. What she gave of love, of small caresses and intimacies, had been free gifts.

>From that time she was his creature. In her creed, which was the creed of the girls on the hill, one did not

receive without giving. She would pay him back, but all that she had to give was herself.

The tingling was very noticeable now. He felt warm, and young, and very, very strong.

"Of course I'll come to see you," he said, recklessly. "You take a little time off you've worked hard and

She bent down, unexpectedly, and put her bruised cheek against his hand, as it lay on the table.

February and March were peaceful months, on the surface. Washington was taking stock quietly of national

resources and watching for Germany's next move. The winter impasse in Europe gave way to the first

fighting of spring, raids and sorties mostly, since the ground was still too heavy for the advancement of

artillery. On the high seas the reign of terror was in full swing, and little tragic echoes of the world drama

began again to come by cable across the Atlantic. Some of Graham's friends, like poor Chris, found the end

of the path of glory. The tall young Canadian Highlander died before Peronne in March. Denis Nolan's

One day Clayton came borne to find a whitefaced Buckham taking his overcoat in the ball, and to learn that

Clayton was uncomfortable at dinner that night. He wondered what Buckham thought of them, sitting there

around the opulent table, in that luxurious room. Did he resent it? After dinner he asked him if he cared to

"I'm glad to have my work to keep me busy, sir," he said. "And anyhow, in England, it's considered best to go

There was a new softness and tolerance in Clayton that early spring. He had mellowed, somehow, a

mellowing that had nothing to do with his new prosperity. In past times he had wondered how he would stand

financial success if it ever came. He had felt fairly sure he could stand the other thing. But success Now he

found that it only increased his sense of responsibility. He was, outside of the war situation, as nearly happy

as he had been in years. Natalie's petulant moods, when they came, no longer annoyed him. He was

supported, had he only known it, by the strong inner life he was living, a life that centered about his weekly

Audrey gave him courage to go on. He left their comradely hours together better and stronger. All the week

centered about that one hour, out of seven days, when he stood on her hearthrug, or lay back in a deep chair,

Some times he felt that that one hour was all he wanted; it carried so far, helped so greatly. He was so

boyishly content in it. And then she would make a gesture, or there would be, for a second, a deeper note in

Some times he wondered if she were not very lonely, not knowing that she, too, lived for days on that one

hour. She was not going out, because of Chris's death, and he knew there were long hours when she sat alone,

Only once did they tread on dangerous ground, and that was on her birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his

way uptown and brought her a black pearl on a thin almost invisible chain, only to have her refuse to take it.

"Audrey," he said gravely, "it isn't the pearl. It isn't its value. That's absurd. Don't you understand that I would

When she sat still, thinking over what he had said, he slipped the chain around her neck and clasped it. Then

In all those weeks, that was the only time he had kissed her. He knew quite well the edge of the gulf they

stood on, and he was determined not to put the burden of denial on her. He felt a real contempt for men who

left the strength of refusal to a woman, who pleaded, knowing that the woman's strength would save them

Graham, too, was getting on better. For one thing, Anna Klein had been ill. She lay in her boardinghouse,

frightened at every step on the stairs, and slowly recovered from a low fever. Graham had not seen her, but he

sent her money for a doctor, for medicines, for her room rent, enclosed in brief letters, purely friendly and

interested. But she kept them under her pillow and devoured them with feverish eyes.

But something had gone out of life for Graham. Not Anna. Natalie, watching him closely, wondered what it

was. He had been strange and distant with her ever since that tall boy in kilts had been there. He was

studiously polite and attentive to her, rose when she entered a room and remained standing until she was

seated, brought her the book she had forgotten, lighted her occasional cigaret, kissed her morning and

evening. But he no longer came into her dressingroom for that hour before dinner when Natalie, in

dressinggown and slippers, had closed the door to Clayton's room and had kept him for herself.

She was jealous of Clayton those days. Some times she found the boy's eyes fixed on his father, with

admiration and something more. She was jealous of the things they had in common, of the days at the mill, of

the bits of discussion after dinner, when Clayton sat back with his cigar, and Graham voiced, as new

He always listened gravely, with no hint of patronage. But Natalie would break in now and then, impatient of

"Your father knows all these things, Graham," she said once. "You talk as though you'd just discovered the

"Not at all," Clayton said, hastily. "He has a new viewpoint. I am greatly interested. Go on, Graham."

But the boy's enthusiasm had died. He grew selfconscious, apologetic. And Clayton felt a resentment that

The second of April fell on a Saturday. Congress, having ended the session the fourth of March, had been

hastily reconvened, and on the evening of that day, Saturday, at half past eight, the President went before the

Much to Clayton's disgust, he found on returning home that they were dining out.

"Only at the Mackenzies. It's not a party," Natalie said. As usual, she was before the dressingtable, and she

spoke to his reflection in the mirror. "I should think you could do that, without looking like a thundercloud.

"It's rather a serious time." He tried very hard to speak pleasantly. Her engrossment in her own reflection

"Every time is a serious time with you lately," she flung after him. Her tone was not disagreeable. She was

merely restating an old grievance. A few moments later he heard her calling through the open door.

"You'll love these. They have the softest colors, dead rose, and faded blue, and old copper tones."

She was in high good humor when they started. Clayton, trying to meet her conversational demands found

himself wondering if the significance of what was to happen in Washington that night had struck home to her.

If it had, and she could still be cheerful, then it was because she had forced a promise from Graham.

He made his decision then; to force her to release the boy from any promise; to allow him his own choice.

But he felt with increasing anxiety that some of Natalie's weakness of character had descended to Graham,

that in him, as in Natalie, perhaps obstinacy was what he hoped was strength. He wondered listening to her,

what it would be to have beside him that night some strong and quiet woman, to whom he could carry his

problems, his perplexities. Some one to sit, hand in his, and set him right as such a woman could, on many

And for a moment, he pictured Audrey. Audrey, his wife, driving with him in their car, to whatever the

evening might hold. And after it was all over, going back with her, away from all the chatter that meant so

Natalie had been right. It was a small and informal group, gathered together hastily to discuss the emergency;

"We brought her out of her shell," said Terry, genially, "because the country is going to make history

The little party was very grave. Yet, of them all, only the Spencers would be directly affected. The

"Button, my secretary," Terry announced, "is in Washington. He is to call me here when the message is

"isn't it possible," said Natalie, recalling a headline from the evening paper, "that the House may cause an

And, as usual, Clayton wondered at the adroitness with which, in the talk that followed, she escaped

They sat long at the table, rather as though they clung together. And Nolan insisted on figuring the cost of

"Queer thing," he said. "In ancient times the cost of war fell almost entirely on the poor. But it's the rich who

"The poor pay in blood," said Audrey, rather sharply. "They give their lives, and that is all they have."

"Rich and poor are going to do that, now," old Terry broke in. "Fight against it all you like, you members of

But Clayton Spencer was watching Natalie. She had paled and was fingering her liqueurglass absently.

Behind her lowered eyelids he surmised that again she was planning. But what? Then it came to him, like a

flash. Old Terry had said the draft would exempt married men. She meant to marry Graham to a girl she

Through it all, however, and in spite of his anger and apprehension, he was sorry for her. Sorry for her craven

spirit. Sorry even with an understanding that came from his own fears. Sorry for her, that she had remained

an essential child in a time that would tax the utmost maturity. She was a child. Even her selfishness was the

selfishness of a spoiled child. She craved things, and the spirit, the essence of life, escaped her.

And beside him was Audrey, valianteyed, courageous, honest. Natalie and Audrey! Some time during the

evening his thoughts took this form: that there were two sorts of people in the world: those who seized their

own happiness, at any cost; and those who saw the promised land from a far hill, and having seen it, turned

Graham was waiting in Clayton's dressingroom when he went upstairs. Through the closed door they

could hear Natalie's sleepy and rather fretful orders to her maid. Graham rose when he entered, and threw

A great wave of tenderness for the boy flooded over him. That tall, straight body, cast in his own mold, but

young, only ready to live, that was to be cast into the crucible of war, to come out God alone knew how.

And not his boy only, but millions of other boys. Yet better to break the body than ruin the soul.

Natalie's voice came through the door. She was insisting that the house be kept quiet the next morning. She

wanted to sleep late. Clayton caught the boy's eyes on him, and a half smile on his face.

"She isn't taking it very hard, is she?" Then his voice changed. "I wish you'd talk to her, father. She's well,

"The night we broke with Germany in February. I was a fool, but she was crying, and I didn't know what else

to do. And" there was a ring of desperation in his voice "she's holding me to it. I've been to her over and

He broke out then into a wild appeal. He wanted to get away. He was making a mess of all sorts of things. He

wasn't any good. He would try to make good in the army. Maybe it was only the adventure he wanted he

didn't know. He hadn't gone into that. He hated the Germans. He wanted one chance at them, anyhow. They

"I'll talk to your mother," he agreed, when the boy's passion had spent itself. "I think she will release you."

But he was less certain than he pretended to be. He remembered Natalie's drooping eyelids that night at

dinner. She might absolve him from the promise, but there were other ways of holding him back than

"Perhaps we would better go into the situation thoroughly," he suggested. "I have rather understood, lately,

"I told her, yes." He looked up quickly. "I didn't tell you. I knew you disliked her, and mother said?" He

checked himself. "Marion wanted to wait. She wanted to be welcome when she came into the family."

Clayton was tired. His very spirit was tired. He sat down in his big chair by the fire.

In Clayton's defense was his own situation. He did not want the boy to repeat his mistakes, to marry the

wrong woman, and then find, too late, the right one. During the impassioned appeal that followed he was

doggedly determined to prevent that. Perhaps he lost the urgency in the boy's voice. Perhaps in his new

conviction that the passions of the forties were the only real ones, he took too little count of the urge of youth.

And in sheer despair, Clayton played his last card. Played it, and regretted it bitterly a moment later.

"We must get this straight, Graham. It's not a question of your entering the army or not doing it. It's a

question of your happiness. Marriage is a matter of a lifetime. It's got to be based on something more than

"You have just said that your mother does not want you to go into the army. Has it occurred to you she would

"So;" he said, heavily, "Marion wants me for the money she thinks I'm going to have, and mother wants me

Suddenly he was gone, and Clayton, following uneasily to the doorway, heard a slam below. When, some

hours later, Graham had not come back, he fell into the heavy sleep that follows anxiety and brings no rest. In

the morning he found that Graham had gone back to the garage and taken his car, and that he had not

Afterward Clayton was to look back and to remember with surprise how completely the war crisis had found

him absorbed in his own small group. But perhaps in the back of every man's mind war was always, first of

all, a thing of his own human contacts. It was only when those were cleared up that he saw the bigger

He went out into the country the next day, a cold Sunday, going afoot, his head down against the wind, and

walked for miles. He looked haggard and tired when he came back, but his quiet face held a new resolve. War

had come at last. He would put behind him the selfish craving for happiness, forget himself. He would not

make money out of the nation's necessity. He would put Audrey out of his mind, if not out of his heart. He

would try to rebuild his house of life along new and better lines. Perhaps he could bring Natalie to see things

Some times it took great crises to bring out women. Childbearing did it, often. Urgent need did it, too. But

after all the real test was war. The big woman met it squarely, took her part of the burden; the small woman

He did not notice Graham's car when it passed him, outside the city limits, or see Anna Klein's startled eyes

Graham did not come in until evening. At ten o'clock Clayton found the second man carrying upstairs a tray

containing whisky and soda, and before he slept he heard a tap at Graham's door across the hall, and surmised

that he had rung for another. Later still he heard Natalie cross the hall, and rather loud and angry voices. He

considered, ironically, that a day which had found a part of the nation on its knees found in his own house

In the morning, at the office, Joey announced a soldier to see him, and added, with his customary

Clayton, glancing up from the visitor's slip in his hand, surprised something wistful in the boy's eyes.

"Give my neck to go sir." He always added the "sir," when he remembered it, with the air of throwing a sop

"You may yet, you know. This thing is going to last a while. Send him in, Joey."

He had grown attached to this lad of the streets. He found in his loyalty a thing he could not buy.

Jackson was his caller. Clayton, who had been rather more familiar with his back in its gray livery than with

"I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner, Mr. Spencer," he explained. "I've been down on the border. Yuma. I just

He stood very erect, a bronzed and military figure. Suddenly it seemed strange to Clayton Spencer that this

man before him had only a few months before opened his automobile door for him, and stood waiting with a

"Sit down," he said. And again it occurred to him that never before had he asked Jackson to sit down in his

presence. It was wrong, somehow. The whole class system was absurd. Maybe war would change that, too. It

He had sent for Jackson, but he did not at once approach the reason. He sat back, while Jackson talked of the

Clayton's eyes wandered to the window. Outside in the yard were other men, now employees of his, who

would soon be in khaki. Out of every group there in a short time some would be gone, and of those who

would go a certain number would never come back. That was what war was; one day a group of men,

laboring with their hands or their brains, that some little home might live; that they might go back at evening

to that home, and there rest for the next day's toil. And the next, gone. Every man out there in the yard was

loved by some one. To a certain nuniber of them this day meant death, or wounding. It meant separation, and

The roar of the plant came in fhrough the open window. A freight car was being loaded with finished shells.

As fast as it was filled, another car was shunted along the spur to take its place. Over in Germany, in

hundreds of similar plants, similar shells were being hurried to the battle line, to be hurled against the new

Jackson had stopped. Joey was regarding him with stealthy admiration, and holding his breast bone very

"I sent for you, yes," he said. "I sent I'll tell you why I sent for you, Jackson. I've been meaning to do it for

several weeks. Now that this has come I'm more than glad I did so. You can't keep your family on what you

"My wife is going to help me, sir. The boy will soon be weaned. Then she intends to get a position. She was a

"She's going to fix that, all right. She wants to do it. And we're all right so far I had saved a little."

Then there were women like that! Women who would not only let their men go to war, but who would leave

"She says it's the right thing," volunteered Jackson, proudly. Women who felt that a man going into the

service was a right thing. Women who saw war as a duty to be done, not a wild adventure for the

"You ought to be very proud of her," he said slowly. "There are not many like that."

"Well," Jackson said, apologetically, "they'll come round, sir. Some of them kind of hate the idea, just at first.

Clayton wondered grimly what Jackson would think if he knew that at that moment he was passionately

envious of him, of his uniform, of the youth that permitted him to wear that uniform, of his bronzed skin, of

"You're a lucky chap, Jackson," he said. "I sent for you because I wanted to say that, as long as you are in the

national service, I shall feel that you are on a vacation" he smiled at the word "on pay. Under those

"As a matter of fad," Clayton went on, "it's a national move, in a way. You don't owe any gratitude. We need

our babies, you see. More than we do hats! If this war goes on, we shall need a good many boy babies."

And his own words suddenly crystallized the terror that was in him. It was the boys who would go; boys who

whistled in the morning; boys who dreamed in the spring, long dreams of romance and of love.

Boys. Not men like himself, with their hopes and dreams behind them. Not men who had lived enough to

know that only their early dreams were real. Not men, who, having lived, knew the vast disillusion of living

It was only after Jackson had gone that he saw the fallacy of his own reasoning. If to live were

disappointment, then to die, still dreaming the great dream, was not wholly evil. He found himself saying,

Deep down in him, overlaid with years of worldliness, there was a belief in a life after death. He looked out

the window at the little, changing group. In each man out there there was something that would live on, after

he had shed that sweating, often dirty, always weary, sometimes malformed shell that was the body. And then

This war was a big thing. It was the biggest thing in all the history of the world. There might be, perhaps,

some special heaven for those who had given themselves to it, some particular honorable advancement for

Then he knew that all his thinking was really centered about his boy. He wanted Graham to go. But in giving

him he was giving him to the chance of death. Then he must hold to his belief in eternity. He must feel that,

or the thing would be unbearable. For the first time in his life he gave conscious thought to Natalie's religious

belief. She believed in those things. She must. She sat devoutly through the long service; she slipped, with a

little rustle of soft silk, so easily to her knees. Perhaps, if he went to her with that?

For a week after Anna's escape Herman Klein had sat alone and brooded. Entirely alone now, for following a

"I don't know where she is," she had said, angrily, "and if I did know I wouldn't tell you. If I was her I'd have

the law on you. Don't you look at that strap. You lay a hand on me and I'll kill you. If you think I'm afraid of

"She is my daughter, and not yet of age," Herman said heavily. "You tell her for me that she comes back, or I

"Yah!" Katie jeered. "You try it! She's got marks on her that'll jail you." And on his failure to reply her

courage mounted. "This ain't Germany, you know. They know how to treat women over here. And you ask

me" her voice rose "and I'll just say that there's queer comings and goings here with that Rudolph. I've

For all his rage, Teutonic caution warned him not to lay hands on the girl. But his anger against her almost

strangled him. Indeed, when she came down stairs, dragging her heavy suitcase, he took a tep or two toward

"You old bully!" she said, between white lips. "You touch me, and I'll scream till I bring in every neighbor in

the block. There's a good lamppost outside that's just waiting for your sort of German."

He had refused to pay her for the last week, also. But that she knew well enough was because he was out of

money. As fast as Anna's salary had come in, he had taken out of it the small allowance that was to cover the

week's expenses, and had banked the remainder. But Anna had carried her last pay envelope away with her,

and added to his anger at her going was his fear that he would have to draw on his savings.

With Katie gone, he set heavily about preparing his Sunday dinner. Long years of service done for him,

however, had made him clumsy. He cooked a wretched meal, and then, leaving the dishes as they were, he sat

by the fire and brooded. When Rudolph came in, later, he found him there, in his stockingfeet, a morose and

Rudolph's reception of the news roused him, however. He looked up, after the telling, to find the younger

"What did you beat her with?" Rudolph was licking his lips. Receiving no reply, he called "Katie!"

"All right, old top," he said, in a conciliatory tone. "No offense meant. I lost my temper."

He picked up the empty coalscuffle, and went out into the shed where the coal was kept. He needed a

minute to think. Besides, he always brought in coal when he was there. In the shed, however, he put down the

But his rage for Anna was followed by rage against her. Where was she tonight? Did Graham Spencer know

where she was? And if he did, what then? Were they at that moment somewhere together? Hidden away, the

two of them? The conviction that they were together grew on him, and with it a frenzy that was almost

madness. He left the coal scuttle in the shed, and went out into the air. For a half hour he stood there, looking

down toward the Spencer furnace, sending up, now red, now violet bursts of flame.

He was angry enough, jealous enough. But he was quick, too, to see that that particular lump of potters' clay

which was Herman Klein was ready for the wheel. Even while he was cursing the girl his cunning mind was

already plotting, revenge for the Spencers, selfaggrandizement among his fellows for himself. His

inordinate conceit, wounded by Anna's defection, found comfort in the early prospect of putting over a big

thing. He carried the coal in, to find Herman gloomily clearing his untidy table. For a moment they worked in

Then Rudolph washed his hands under the faucet and faced the older man. "How do you know she bought

"Perhaps you gave it to her!" Something like suspicion of Rudolph crept into his eyes.

"I saw it. She tried that story on me, too. But I was too smart for her. I went to the store and asked. A hundred

"It wasn't my funeral," said Rudolph coolly. "If you wanted to believe she bought it herself?"

"If she bought it herself!" Rudolph's shoulder was caught in an iron grip. "You will tell me what you mean."

"Well, I ask you, do you think she'd spend that much on a watch? Anyhow, the installment story doesn't go.

"I don't mean anything. But he's taken her out in his car. And the Spencers think there's nothing can't be

"Listen!" Rudolph said, excitedly. "Don't you do it; not yet. You got to get him first. We don't know

anything; we don't even know he gave her that watch. We've got to find her, don't you see? And then, we've

"I shall bring her back," Herman said, stubbornly. "I shall bring her back, and I shall kill her."

"And get strung up yourself! Now listen?" he argued. "You leave this to me. I'll find her. I've got a friend, a

city detective, and he'll help me, see? We'll get her back, all right. Only you've got to keep your hands off her.

Rudolph went out. Late in the evening he came back, with the news that the search was on. And, knowing

Herman's pride, he assured him that the hill need never learn of Anna's flight, and if any inquiries came he

In Rudolph's twisted mind it was not so much Anna's delinquency that enraged him. The hill had its own

ideas of morality. But he was fiercely jealous, with that classjealousy which was the fundamental actuating

And, sitting by the fire in the little house, old Herman's untidy head shrunk on his shoulders, Rudolph almost

forgot Anna in plotting to use this new pawn across the hearth from him in his game of destruction.

By the end of the week, however, there was no news of Anna. She had not returned to the mill. Rudolph's

friend on the detective force had found no clew, and old Herman had advanced from brooding by the fire to

He felt no remorse, only a growing and alarming fury. He returned at night, to his cold and unkempt house, to

cook himself a frugal and wretched meal. His money had run very low, and with true German stubbornness

Rudolph was very busy. There were meetings always, and to the little inner circle that met behind Gus's

barroom one night later in March, he divulged the plan for the destruction of the new Spencer munition plant.

"But will they take him back?" one of the men asked. He was of better class than the rest, with a military

"Will a dog snatch at a bone?" countered Rudolph. "Take him back! They'll be crazy about it."

But Rudolph only laughed, and drank more whisky of the German agent's providing.

"He won't weaken," he said. "Give me a few days more to find the girl, and all hell won't hold him."

On the Sunday morning after the President had been before Congress, he found Herman dressed for church,

but sitting by the fire. All around him lay the Sunday paper, and he barely raised his head when Rudolph

Herman said nothing. But later on he opened up the fountain of rage in his heart. It was wrong, all wrong. We

had no quarrel with Germany. It was the capitalists and politicians who had done it. And above all, England.

He went far. He blamed America and Americans for his loss of work, for Anna's disappearance. He searched

his mind for grievances and found them?in the ore dust on the hill, which killed his garden; in the

inefficiency of the police, who could not find Anna; in the very attitude of Clayton Spencer toward his

And on this smoldering fire Rudolph piled fuel Not that he said a great deal. He worked around the cottage,

washed dishes, threw pails of water on the dirty porches, swept the floor, carried in coal and wood. And

gradually he began to play on the older man's vanity. He had had great influence with the millworkers. No

Old Herman sat up, and listened sourly. But after a time he got up and pouring some water out of the kettle,

proceeded to shave himself. And Rudolph talked on. If now he were to go back, and it were to the advantage

of the Fatherland and of the workers of the world to hamper the industry, who so able to do it as Herman.

"Hamper? How?" Herman asked, suspiciously, holding his razor aloft. He had a great fear of the law.

"Well, a strike," he suggested. "The men'll listen to you. God knows they've got a right to strike."

But Rudolph was satisfied. He left Herman sitting again by the fire, but his eyes were no longer brooding. He

was thinking, watching the smoke curl up from the chinabowled German pipe which he had brought from

The declaration of war found Graham desperately unhappy. Natalie held him rigidly to his promise, but it is

doubtful if Natalie alone could have kept, him out of the army. Marion was using her influence, too! She held

him by alternating between almost agreeing to runaway marriage and threats of breaking the engagement if

he went to war. She had tacitly agreed to play Natalie's game, and she was doing it.

Graham did not analyze his own misery. What he said to himself was that he was making a mess of things.

Life, which had seemed to be a simple thing, compounded of work and play, had become involved, difficult

Some times he watched Clayton almost with envy. He seemed so sure of himself; he was so poised, so calm,

so strong. And he wondered if there had been a tumultuous youth behind the quiet of his maturity. He

compared the even course of Clayton's days, his work, his club, the immaculate orderliness of his life, with

He was hedged about with women. Wherever he turned, they obtruded themselves. He made plans and

women brushed them aside. He tried to live his iife, and women stepped in and lived it for him. His mother,

Marion, Anna Klein. Even Delight, with her friendship always overclouded with disapproval. Wherever he

turned, a woman stood in the way. Yet he could not do without them. He needed them even while he resented

Then, gradually, into his selfengrossment there penetrated a conviction that all was not well between his

father and his mother. He had always taken them for granted much as he did the house and the servants. In his

brief vacations during his college days they had agreed or disagreed, amicably enough. He had considered, in

those days, that life was a very simple thing. People married and lived together. Marriage, he considered, was

But he was older now, and he knew that marriage was a beginning and not an end. It did not change people

His discovery that his father and mother differed about the war was the first of other discoveries; that they

differed about him; that they differed about many matters; that, indeed, they had no common ground at all on

which to meet; between them, although Graham did not put it that way, was a NoMan's Land strewn with

It was incredible to Graham that he should ever reach the forties, but he wondered some times if all of life

was either looking forward or looking back. And it seemed to him rather tragic that for Clayton, who still

looked like a boy, there should be nothing but his day at the mill, his silent evening at home, or some stodgy

dinnerparty where the women were all middleaged, and the other men a trifle corpulent.

For the first time he was beginning to think of Clayton as a man, rather than a father.

Not that all of this was coherently thought out. It was a series of impressions, outgrowth of his own beginning

He wondered, too, about Rodney Page. He seemed to be always around, underfoot, suave, fastidious, bowing

Natalie out of the room and in again. He had deplored the war until he found his attitude unfashionable, and

then he began, with great enthusiasm, to arrange pageants for Red Cross funds, and even to make little

Graham was certain that he supported his mother in trying to keep him at home, and he began to hate him

with a healthy young hate. However, late in April, he posed in one of the pageants, rather ungraciously, in a

khaki uniform. It was not until the last minute that he knew that Delight Haverford was to be the nurse

"It's fake. That's what I hate. If you were really a nurse, and was really in uniform ! But this parading in

"Why don't you get a uniform of your own, then?" she inquired. She smiled a little.

He never knew what the effort cost her. He was pale and angry, and his face in the tableau was so set that it

brought a round of applause. With the ringing down of the curtain he confronted her, almost menacingly.

"What did you mean by that?" he demanded. "We've hardly got into this thing yet."

"Just because I don't leap into the first recruiting office and beg them to take me what right have you got to

He meant it, too. He would get Anna settled somewhere she had begun to mend and then he would have

it out with Marion and his mother. But there was no hurry. The "war would last a long time. And so it was

that Graham Spencer joined the long line of those others who had bought a piece of ground, or five yoke of

It was the morning after the pageant that Clayton, going downtown with him in the car, voiced his

expectation that the government would take over their foreign contracts, and his feeling that, in that case, it

Graham had been fairly stunned, and had sat quiet while Clayton explained his attitude. There were times

when big profits were allowable. There was always the risk to invested capital to consider. But he did not

want to grow fat on the nation's misfortunes. Italy was one thing. This was different.

"Think it over!" said Clayton. "This is going to be a long war, and an expensive one. We don't particularly

Graham flushed. He felt rather small and cheap, but with that there was a growing admiration of his father.

Suddenly he saw that this man beside him was a big man, one to be proud of. For already he knew the cost of

"It's too soon to discuss that. We are obligated to do a certain amount. Of course it would be wise to cut

It had never occurred to him before to take sides between his father and his mother, but there was rising in

him a new and ardent partisanship of his father, a feeling that they were, in a way, men together. He had,

more than once, been tempted to go to him with the Anna Klein situation. He would have, probably, but a

fellow felt an awful fool going to somebody and telling him that a girl was in love with him, and what the

He wondered, too, if anybody would believe that his relationship with Anna was straight, under the

circumstances. For weeks now he had been sending her money, out of a sheer sense of responsibility for her

beating and her illness. He took no credit for altruism. He knew quite well the possibilities of the situation.

He made no promises to himself. But such attraction as Anna had had for him had been of her prettiness, and

their propinquity. Again she was girl, and that was all. And the attraction was very faint now. He was only

When she could get about she took to calling him up daily from a drugstore at a nearby corner, and once

he met her after dark and they walked a few blocks together. She was still weak, but she was spiritualized,

"I'll pay it back. I'm going to start tomorrow to look for work, and it won't cost me much to live."

"I'd have died if I hadn't had you to think about when I was sick, Graham. I wanted to die except for you."

He had kissed her then, rather because he knew she expected him to. When they got back to the house she

"The landlady doesn't object. There isn't any parlor. All the girls have their callers in their rooms."

As he started away he glanced back at her. She was standing in the doorway, eying him wistfully, a lonely

and depressed little figure. He was tempted to throw discretion to the wind and go back. But he did not.

On the day when Clayton had broached the subject of offering their output to the government at only a

He was rather annoyed. His new secretary was sitting across the desk, and it was difficult to make his

He looked up. Miss Peterson was absently scribbling on the cover of her book, and listening intently.

He almost groaned aloud over the predicament he was in. It began to look serious.

He was very irritable all morning. He felt as though a net was closing in around him, and his actual innocence

made him the more miserable. Miss Peterson found him very difficult that day, and shed tears in her little

Anna herself was difficult that evening. Her landlady's son had given up a good job and enlisted. Everybody

"Oh, you'll go, all right. And you'll forget I ever existed." She made an effort. "You're right, of course. I'm

The idea interested her. She began to dramatize herself, a forlorn figure, driven from home, and deserted by

her lover. She saw herself lying in the cottage, stately and mysterious, while the hill girls went in and out, and

"If you cared, you'd have come up the other night. You left me alone in that lonesome hole. It's hell, that

"Now listen to me, Anna. You're tired, or you wouldn't say that. You know I'm fond of you. But I've got you

"Tempt you!" Then she gave a little scream. Graham following her eyes looked through the window near

But Graham saw nobody. To soothe her, however, he went outside and looked about. There were half a dozen

cars, a group of chauffeurs, but no Rudolph. He went hack to her, to find her sitting, pale and tense, her hands

"They'll pay you out some way," she said. "I know them. They'll never believe the truth. That was Rudolph,

all right. He'll think we're living together. He'd never believe anything else."

"Then I don't see why you're worrying. We're just where we were before, aren't we?"

She was excited and anxious, and with the cocktail he ordered for her she grew reckless.

"I'm just hung around your neck like a stone," she lamented. "You don't care a rap for me; I know it. You're

But on the road the fact that she had been weeping for him made him relent. He put an arm around her and

He kissed her. And they clung together, finding a little comfort in the contact of warm young bodies.

He went up to her room that night. He was more anxious as to Rudolph than he cared to admit, but he went

up, treading softly on stairs that creaked with every step. He had no coherent thoughts. He wanted

companionship rather than love. He was hungry for what she gave him, the touch of her hands about his neck,

the sense of his manhood that shone from her faithful eyes, the admiration and unstinting love she offered

But alone in the little room he had a reaction, not the less keen because it was his fastidious rather than his

moral sense that revolted. The room was untidy, close, sordid. Even Anna's youth did not redeem it. Again he

had the sense, when he had closed the door, of being caught in a trap, and this time a dirty trap. When she had

taken off her hat, and held up her face to be kissed, he knew he would not stay.

He threw up the window, and stood there a moment. The spring air was cool and clean, and there was a sound

of tramping feet below. He looked down. The railway station was nearby, and marching toward it, with the

long swing of regulars, a company of soldiers was moving rapidly. The night, the absence of drums or music,

the businesslike rapidity of their progress, held him there, looking down. He turned around. Anna had slipped

off her coat, and had opened the collar of her blouse. Her neck gleamed white and young. She smiled at him.

"I only wanted to see how you are fixed." His eyes evaded hers. "I'll see you again in a day or two. I "

He could not tell her the thoughts that were surging in him. The country was at war. Those fellows below

there were already in it, of it. And here in this sordid room, he had meant to take her, not because he loved

her, but because she offered herself. It was cheap. It was terrible. It was dirty.

"Good night," he said, and tried to kiss her. But she turned her face away. She stood listening to his steps on

the stairs as he went down, steps that mingled and were lost in the steady tramp of the soldiers' feet in the

With his many new problems following the declaration of war, Clayton Spencer found a certain peace. It was

good to work hard. It was good to fill every working hour, and to drop into sleep at night too weary for

Yet had he been frank with himself he would have acknowledged that Audrey was never really out of his

mind. Back of his every decision lay his desire for her approval. He did not make them with her consciously

in his mind, but he wanted her to know and understand, In his determination, for instance, to offer his shells

to the government at a nominal profit, there was no desire to win her approbation.

It was rather that he felt her behind him in the decision. He shrank from telling Natalie. Indeed, until he had

returned from Washington he did not broach the sublect. And then he was tired and rather discouraged, and

Coming on top of a hard fight with the new directorate, a fight which he had finally won, Washington was

disheartening. Planning enormously for the future it seemed to have no vision for the things of the present.

He was met vaguely, put off, questioned. He waited hours, as patiently as he could, to find that no man

He found something else, too a suspicion of him, of his motives. Who offered something for nothing must

be actuated by some deep and hidden motive. He found his plain proposition probed and searched for some

"It's the old distrust, Mr. Spencer," said Hutchinson, who had gone with him to furnish figures and various

data. "The Democrats are opposed to capital. They're afraid of it. And the army thinks all civilians are on the

He saw the Secretary of War, finally, and came away feeling better. He had found there an understanding that

a man may even should make sacrifices for his country during war. But, although he carried away with

him the conviction that his offer would ultimately be accepted, there was nothing actually accomplished. He

sent Hutchinson back, and waited for a day or two, convinced that his very sincerity must bring a concrete

Then, lunching alone one day in the Shoreham, he saw Audrey Valentine at another table. He had not seen

her for weeks, and he had an odd moment of breathlessness when his eyes fell on her. She was pale and thin,

and her eyes looked very tired. His first impulse was to go to her. The second, on which he acted, was to

watch her for a little, to fill his eyes for the long months of emptiness ahead.

She was with a man in uniform, a young man, gay and smiling. He was paying her evident court, in a

debonair fashion, bending toward her across the table. Suddenly Clayton was jealous, fiercely jealous.

The jealousy of the young is sad enough, but it is an ephemeral thing. Life calls from many directions. There

is always the future, and the things of the future. And behind it there is the buoyancy and easy forgetfulness

of youth. But the jealousy of later years knows no such relief. It sees time flying and happiness evading it. It

has not the easy selfconfidence of the twenties. It has learned, too, that happiness is a rare elusive thing, to

It has learned that love must be free, but its instinct is to hold it with chains.

He suffered acutely, and was ashamed of his suffering. After all, Audrey was still young. Life had not been

kind to her, and she should be allowed to have such happiness as she could. He could offer her nothing.

Then she saw him, and his determination died under the light that came in her eyes. Give her up! How could

he give her up, when she was everything he had in the world? With a shock, he recognized in the thought

He felt Audrey's eyes on him, but he did not go to her. He signed his check, and went out. He fully meant to

go away without seeing her. But outside he hesitated. That would hurt her, and it was cowardly. When, a few

moments later, she came out, followed by the officer, it was to find him there, obviously waiting.

"I wondered if you would dare to run away!" she said. "This is Captain Sloane, Clay, and he knows a lot

Close inspection showed Sloane handsome, bronzed, and with a soft Southern voice, somewhat like Audrey's.

And it developed that he came from her home, and was on his way to one of the early camps. He obviously

intended to hold on to Audrey, and Clayton left them there with the feeling that Audrey's eyes were following

him, wistful and full of trouble. He had not even asked her where she was stopping.

He took a long walk that afternooon, and remade his noonhour resolution. He would keep away from her.

It might hurt her at first, but she was young. She would forget. And he must not stand in her way. Having

done which, he returned to the Shoreham and spent an hour in a telephone booth, calling hotels systematically

"Of course not. I just wanted to I am leaving tonight and I'm saying goodby. That's all."

He hesitated. He was amazed at his own attitude. Then, "Will you dine with me tonight?"

But when he saw her, his sense of discomfort only increased. Their dining together was natural enough. It

was not even faintly clandestine. But the new restraint he put on himself made him reserved and unhappy. He

could not act a part. And after a time Audrey left off acting, too, and he found her watching him. On the

surface he talked, but underneath it he saw her unhappiness, and her understanding of his.

"I'm going back, too," she said. "I came down to see what I can do, but there is nothing for the untrained

woman. She's a cumberer of the earth. I'll go home and knit. I daresay I ought to be able to learn to do that

That was it, in a nutshell. Audrey understood. She was that sort. She never held small resentments. He rather

"Don't talk about me," she said. "Tell me about you and why you are here. It's the war, of course."

So, rather reluctantly, he told her. He shrank from seeming to want her approval, but at the same time he

wanted it. His faith in himself had been shaken. He needed it restored. And some of the exaltation which had

led him to make his proffer to the government came back when he saw how she flushed over it.

"It's very big," she said, softly. "It's like you, Clay. And that's the best thing I can say. I am very proud of

"I would rather have you proud of me than anything in the world," he said, unsteadily.

They drifted, somehow, to talking of happiness. And always, carefully veiled, it was their own happiness they

"I don't think," she said, glancing away from him, "that one finds it by looking for it. That is selfish, and the

selfish are never happy. It comes oh, in queer ways. When you're trying to give it to somebody else,

Their eyes met. That was what they had to face, she dedicated to service, he to labor.

"Never!" she said. And the answer was to the unspoken question in both their hearts.

It was not until they were in the taxicab that Clayton forced the personal note, and then it came as a cry, out

of the very depths of him. She had slipped her hand into his, and the comfort of even that small touch broke

"I need you so!" he said. And he held her hand to his face. She made no movement to withdraw it.

"I need you, too," she replied. "I never get over needing you. But we are going to play the game, Clay. We

may have our weak hours and this is one of them but always, please God, we'll play the game."

And that touch of boyishness almost broke down her reserve of strength. She wanted to draw his head down

on her shoulder, and comfort him. She wanted to smooth back his heavy hair, and put her arms around him

and hold him. There was a great tenderness in her for him. There were times when she would have given the

world to have gone into his arms and let him hold her there, protected and shielded. But that night she was

"To have gone through all the world," he said, brokenly, "and then to find the Woman, when it is too late.

Forever too late." He turned toward her. "You know it, don't you? That you are my woman?"

"Let me say it just once. Then never again. I'll bury it, but you will know it is there. You are my woman. I

would go through all of life alone to find you at the end. And if I could look forward, dear, to going through

"If I could only protect you, and shield you oh, how tenderly I could care for you, my dear, my dear!"

The strength passed to him, then. Audrey had a clear picture of what life with him might mean, of his

protection, his tenderness. She had never known it. Suddenly every bit of her called out for his care, his quiet

"Don't make me sorry for myself." There were tears in her eyes. "Will you kiss me, Clay? We might have that

But they were not to have even that, for the taxicab drew up before her hotel. It was one of the absurd

anticlimaxes of life that they should part with a handclasp and her formal "Thank you for a lovely

Audrey was the better actor of the two. She went in as casually as though she had not put the only happiness

of her life away from her. But Clayton Spencer stood on the pavement, watching her in, and all the tragedy of

Left alone in her untidy room after Graham's abrupt departure, Anna Klein was dazed. She stood where he

left her, staring ahead. What had happened meant only one thing to her, that Graham no longer cared about

It never occurred to her that he had done rather a fine thing, or that he had protected her against herself. She

felt no particular shame, save the shame of rejection. In her small world of the hill, if a man gave a girl

valuable gifts or money there was generally a quid pro quo. If the girl was unwilling, she did not accept such

gifts. If the man wanted nothing, he did not make them. And men who made love to girls either wanted to

She listened to his retreating footsteps, and then began, automatically to unbutton her thin white blouse. But

with the sound of the engine of his car below she ran to the window. She leaned out, elbows on the sill, and

Then, all at once, she was fiercely angry. He had got her into this scrape, and now he had left her. He had

pretended to love her, and all the time he had meant to do just this, to let her offer herself so he might reject

her. He had been playing with her. She had lost her home because of him, had been beaten almost insensible,

She jerked her blouse off, still standing by the window, and when the sleeve caught on her watch, she jerked

that off, too. She stood for a moment with it in her hand, her face twisted with shame and anger. Then

Almost immediately she wanted it again. He had given it to her. It was all she had left now, and in a curious

way it had, through long wearing, come to mean Graham to her. She leaned out of the window. She thought

she saw it gleaming in the gutter, and already, attracted by the crash, a man was crossing the street to where it

"You let that alone," she called down desperately. The figure was already stooping over it. Entirely reckless

now, she ran, barearmed and barebosomed, down the stairs and out into the street. She had thought to see

He followed her into the hail, but when she turned there and held out her hand, he only snarled again.

"That's not so, and you know it, Rudolph Klein. He came inside, just like this, and we stood and talked. Then

he went away. He wasn't inside ten minutes." Her voice rose hysterically, but Rudolph caught her by the arm,

He climbed in a mounting fury. He almost threw her into her room, and closing the door, he turned the key in

it. His face reminded her of her father's the night he had beaten her, and her instinct of selfpreservation

"You lay a hand on me," she panted, "and I'll yell out the window. The police would be glad enough to have

"Don't you dare say that." And as he took a step or two toward her she retreated to the window. "You stay

"He was up here. I saw him at the window. I've been trailing you all evening. Keep off that windowsill, you

little fool! I'm not going to kill you. But I'm going to get him, all right, and don't you forget it."

His milder tone and the threat frightened her more than ever. He would get Graham; he was like that. Get him

in some cruel, helpless way; that was the German blood in him. She began to play for time, with instinctive

"Listen, Rudolph," she said. "I'll tell you all about it. He did come up, but he left right away. We quarreled.

"He threw me over! Honest he did. That's why I threw his watch out of the window. That's straight, Rudolph.

Her tone carried conviction. Rudolph's face relaxed, and seeing that, she remembered her halfdressed

"Getting modest, all at once," he jeered. But he picked it up and advanced to the table with it. As she held out

her hand for it he caught her and drew her forward toward him, across the table.

She submitted, because she must, but she shivered. If she was to save Graham she must play the game. And

so far she was winning. She was feminine enough to know that already the thing he thought she had done was

to be forgiven her. More than that, she saw a halfreluctant admiration in Rudolph's eyes, as though she had

gained value, if she had lost virtue, by the fact that young Spencer had fancied her. And Rudolph's morals

were the morals of many of his kind. He admired chastity in a girl, but he did not expect it.

But she was watchful for the next move he might make. That it was not what she expected did not make it the

"D'you think I'm going to leave you here, where he can come back whenever he wants to? You think again!"

When pleading made no impression on him, and when he refused to move without her, she threw her small

wardrobe into the suitcase, and put her hat and coat on. She was past thinking, quite hopeless. She would go

back, and her father would kill her, which would be the best thing anyhow; she didn't care to live.

Rudolph had relapsed into moody silence. Down the stairs, and on the street he preceded her, contemptuously

letting her trail behind. He carried her suitcase, however, and once, being insecurely fastened, it opened and

bits of untidy apparel littered the pavement. He dropped the suitcase and stood by while she filled it again.

The softness of that moment, when, lured by her bare arms he had kissed her, was gone.

The night car jolted and swayed. After a time he dozed, and Anna, watching him, made an attempt at flight.

He caught her on the rear platform, however, with a clutch that sickened her. The conductor eyed them with

the scant curiosity of two o'clock in the morning, when all the waking world is awry.

At last they were climbing the hill to the cottage, while behind and below them the Spencer furnaces sent out

their orange and violet flames, and the roar of the blast sounded like the coming of a mighty wind.

The cottage was dark. Rudolph put down the suitcase, and called Herman softly through his hands. Above

But when he turned Anna was lying in a dead faint on the garden path, a crumpled little heap of blissful

forgetfulness. When Herman came down, it was to find Rudolph standing over her, the suitcase still in his

"Well, I got her," he said. "She's scared, that's all." He prodded her with his foot, but she did not move, and

"Bring her in," he said, and led the way into the house. When Rudolph staggered in, with Anna in his arms,

Audrey had found something to do at last. It was Captain Sloane who had given her the idea.

"You would make a great hit, Audrey," he had said. "It's your voice, you know. There's something about it

But she had carried the idea home with her, and had proceeded, with her customary decision, to act on it.

Then, one day in May, she was surprised by a visit from Delight Haverford. She had come home, tired and

rather depressed, to find the Haverford car at the door, and Delight waiting for her in her sittingroom.

Audrey's acquaintance with Delight had been rather fragmentary, but it had covered a long stretch of time.

So, if she was surprised, it was not greatly when Delight suddenly kissed her. She saw then that the girl had

"What a nice child you are!" she said, and standing before the mirror proceeded to take off her hat. Before her

she could see the reflection of Delight's face, and her own tired, slightly haggard eyes.

Audrey patted her hair into order, and continued her smiling inspection of the girl's face.

"And now we have exchanged compliments," she said, "we will have some tea, and then you shall tell me

Audrey's housekeeping was still rather casual. Tidiness of Natalie's meticulous order would always be

beyond her, but after certain frantic searches for what was needed, she made some delicious tea.

"Order was left out of me, somehow," she complained. "Or else things move about when I'm away. I'm sure it

is that, because I certainly never put the sugar behind my best hat. Now let's have it."

Delight was only playing with her tea. She flushed delicately, and put the cup down.

"I thought you were wonderful. And, when those men promised to enlist, I cried. I was horribly ashamed. But

"I wonder!" said Audrey, growing grave. Delight was astonished to see that there were tears in her eyes. "I do

it because it is all I can do, and of course they must go. But some times at night you see, my dear, some of

them are going to be killed. I am urging them to go, but the better the day I have had, the less I sleep at

"Partly. And partly about myself. I want to do something, Mrs. Valentine. I can drive a car, but not very well.

I don't know a thing about the engine. And I can nurse a little. I like nursing."

Audrey studied her face. It seemed to her sad beyond words that this young girl, who should have had only

happiness, was facing the horrors of what would probably be a long war. It was the young who paid the price

of war, in death, in empty years. Already the careless gayety of their lives was gone. For the dream futures

they had planned they had now to substitute long waiting; for happiness, service.

"If I only could! But I can't leave mother. Not entirely. Father is going. He wants to go and fight, but I'm

afraid they won't take him. He'll go as a chaplain, anyhow. But he's perfectly helpless, you know. Mother

"I'll see if I can think of something for you, Delight. There's one thing in my mind. There are to be little

houses built in all the new trainingcamps for officers, and they are to be managed by women. They are to

serve food sandwiches and coffee, I think. They may be even more pretentious. I don't know, but I'll find

"I'll do anything," said Delight, and got up. It was then that Audrey realized that there was something more to

"There is something else, Mrs. Valentine," she said, rather slowly. "What would you do if a young man

"Perhaps," she admitted. "But is it right just to let it go at that? If you like people, it seems wrong just to stand

"There's a weakness that is only a sort of habit. It may come from not wanting to hurt somebody." Delight

was pulling nervously at her gloves. "And there is this to be said, too. If there is what you call weakness,

For a sickening moment, Audrey thought of Chris. War had made Chris, but it had killed him, too.

"Have you thought of one thing?" she asked. "That in trying to make this young man, whoever it is, he may

"And this woman is the little longlegged girl who used to give signals to her father when the sermon was

Even this indirect mention of Clayton made Audrey's hands tremble. She put them behind her.

"We are very good friends," she said. But Delight was too engrossed to notice the deeper note in her voice.

"I'll see what I can do. But don't count on me too much. You spoke of a girl. I suppose I know who it is."

And again Audrey marveled at her poise, for Delight's little tragedy was clear by that time. Clear, and very

Audrey smiled at the simple philosophy of nineteen, smiled and was extremely touched. How brave the child

But after Delight had gone, she felt depressed again, and very tired. How badly these things were handled!

How strange it was that love so often brought suffering! Great loves were almost always great tragedies.

Perhaps it was because love was never truly great until the element of sacrifice entered into it.

Her own high courage failed her somewhat. During these recent days when, struggling against very real stage

fright, she made her husky, wholly earnest but rather nervous little appeals to the crowds before the enlisting

stations, she got along bravely enough during the day. But the night found her sad, unutterably depressed.

At these times she was haunted by a fear that persisted against all her arguments. In Washington Clayton had

not looked well. He had been very tired and white, and some of his natural buoyancy seemed to have deserted

him. He needed caring for, she would reflect bitterly. There should be some one to look after him. He was

tired and anxious, but it took the eyes of love to see it. Natalie would never notice, and would consider it a

grievance if she did. The fiercely, maternal tenderness of the childless woman for the man she loves kept her

awake at night staring into the darkness and visualizing terrible things. Clayton ill, and she unable to go to

She was, she knew, not quite normal, but the fear gripped and held her. These big strong men, no one ever

looked after them. They spent their lives caring for others, and were never cared for.

There were times when a sort of exaltation of sacrifice kept her head high, when the thing she was forced to

give up seemed trifling compared with the men and boys who, some determinedly, some sheepishly, left the

crowd around the borrowed car from which she spoke, and went into the recruiting station. There was

sacrifice and sacrifice, and there was some comfort in the thought that both she and Clayton were putting the

They had both, somehow, somewhere, missed the path. But they must never go back and try to find it.

Delight's visit left her thoughtful. There must be some way to save Graham. She wondered how much of

Clayton's weariness was due to Graham. And she wondered, too, if he knew of the talk about Natalie and

Rodney Page. There was a great deal of talk. Somehow such talk cheapened his sacrifice and hers.

Not that she believed it, or much of it. She knew how little such gossip actually meant. Practically every

woman she knew, herself included, had at one time or another laid herself open to such invidious comment.

They had all been idle, and they sought amusement in such spurious affairs as this, harmless in the main, but

taking on the appearance of evil. That was part of the game, to appear worse than one really was. The older

the woman, the more eager she was often in her clutch at the vanishing romance of youth.

Only it was part of the game, too, to avoid scandal. A fierce pride for Clayton's name sent the color to her

On the evening after Delight's visit, she had promised to speak at a recruiting station far downtown in a

crowded tenement district, and tired as she was, she took a bus and went down at seven o'clock. She was

uneasy and nervous. She had not spoken in the evening before, and in all her sheltered life she had never seen

There was a wagon drawn up at the curb, and an earnesteyed young clergyman was speaking. The crowd

was attentive, mildly curious. The clergyman was emphatic without being convincing. Audrey watched the

faces about her, standing in the crowd herself, and a sense of the futility of it all gripped her. All these men,

and only a feeble cheer as a boy still in his teens agreed to volunteer. All this effort for such scant result, and

over on the other side such dire need! But one thing cheered her. Beside her, in the crowd, a portly elderly

Jew was standing with his hat in his hand, and when a man near him made some jeering comment, the Jew

"Be still and listen," he said. "Or else go away and allow others to listen. This is our country which calls."

"It's amusing, isn't it?" Audrey heard a woman's voice near her, carefully inflected, slightly affected.

"It's rather stunning, in a way. It's decorative; the white faces, and that chap in the wagon, and the gasoline

"You are a most brazen combination of the mundane and the spiritual, Natalie. You are all soul after you

Audrey's hands were very cold. By the movement of the crowd behind her, she knew that Natalie and Rodney

were making their escape, toward food and a quiet talk in some obscure restaurant in the neighborhood.

Fierce anger shook her. For this she and Clayton were giving up the only hope they had of happiness that

She made a magnificent appeal that night, and a very successful one. The lethargic crowd waked up and

pressed forward. There were occasional cheers, and now and then the greater tribute of convinced silence.

And on a box in the wagon the young clergyman eyed her almost wistfully. What a woman she was! With

such a woman a man could live up to the best in him. Then he remembered his salary in a mission church of

He gained courage, later on, and asked Audrey if she would have some coffee with him, or something to eat.

She was very grateful. After all, what else really mattered? In a little glow she accepted his invitation.

He piloted her through the crowd, now rapidly dispersing. Here and there some man, often in halting English,

thanked her for what she had said. A woman, slightly the worse for drink, but with friendly, rather humorous

"You're all right, m'dear," she said. "Your're the stuff. Give it to them. I wish to God I could talk. I'd tell 'em

In a small Italian restaurant, almost deserted, they found a table, and the clergyman ordered eggs and coffee.

He was a trifle uneasy. In the wagon Audrey's plain dark clothes had deceived him. But the single pearl on

"I often come here," he explained. "The food is good, if you like Italian cooking. And it is near my work. I

But Audrey was not listening. At a corner, far back, Natalie and Rodney were sitting, engrossed in each other.

Natalie's back was carefully turned to the room, but there was no mistaking her. Audrey wanted madly to get

away, but the coffee had come and the young clergyman was talking gentle platitudes in a rather sweet but

Almost immediately afterward she heard the soft rustle that was Natalie, and found them both beside her.

Natalie was uneasy. Audrey made no move to present the clergyman, whose name she did not know. Rodney

Natalie made a desperate effort to smooth over an awkward situation. She turned to the clergyman.

"For heaven's sake!" Then she laughed and glanced at Rodney. "Well, if you won't tell on me, I'll not tell on

you." And then seeing Audrey straighten, "I don't mean that, of course. Clay's at a meeting tonight, so I am

She moved on, always with the soft rustle, leaving behind her a delicate whiff of violets and a wideeyed

"What a beautiful woman!" he said. There was a faint regret in his voice that Audrey had not presented him,

At ten o'clock the next morning Natalie called her on the 'phone. Natalie's morning voice was always languid,

"Heavens, how you've changed! I suppose you wouldn't do anything so frivolous as to go out with me to the

Audrey hesitated. Evidently Natalie wanted to talk, to try to justify herself. But the feeling that she was the

last woman in the world to be Natalie's fatherconfessor was strong in her. On the other hand, there was the

question of Graham. On that, before long, she and Natalie would have, in one of her own occasional lapses

Natalie was unusually prompt. She was nervous and excited, and was even more carefully dressed than usual.

Over her dark blue velvet dress she wore a loose motorcoat, with a great chinchilla collar, but above it

Audrey, who would have given a great deal to be able to hate her, found her rather pathetic, a little droop to

The car was in its customary resplendent condition. There were orchids in the flowerholder, and the

"What a tone you and your outfit do give my little street," Audrey said, as they started. "We have more

Audrey smiled. "It's really rather nice," she said. "For one thing, I haven't any bills. I never lived on a cash

"Oh, bills!" said Natalie, and waved her hands despairingly. "If you could see my desk! And the way I watch

the mail so Clay won't see them first. They really ought to send bills in blank envelopes."

"I can choose my moment. And it is never in the morning. He's rather awful in the morning."

"Oh, not ugly. Just quiet. I hate a man who doesn't talk in the mornings. But then, for months, he hasn't really

talked at all. That's why ?she was rather breathless "that's why I went out with Rodney last night."

"I don't think Clayton would mind, if you told him first. It's your own affair, of course, but it doesn't seem

"I don't 'side' with any one," Audrey protested. "But I am sure, if he realized that you are lonely "

Suddenly she realized that Natalie was crying. Not much, but enough to force her, to dab her eyes carefully

"I'm awfully unhappy, Audrey," she said. "Everything's wrong, and I don't know why. What have I done? I

Audrey was very uncomfortable. She had a guilty feeling that the whole situation, with Natalie pouring out

"Clay! He's absolutely ungrateful. He takes me for granted, and the house for granted. Everything. And if he

knows I want a thing, he disapproves at once. I think sometimes he takes a vicious pleasure in thwarting me."

But as she did not go on, Audrey said nothing. Natalie had raised her veil, and from a gold vanitycase was

"Why don't you find something to do, something to interest you?" Audrey suggested finally.

But Natalie poured out a list of duties that lasted for the last three miles of the trip, ending with the new

"Even that has ceased to be a satisfaction," she finished. "Clayton wants to stop work on it, and cut down all

the estimates. It's too awful. First he told me to get anything I liked, and now he says to cut down to nothing.

"War or no war, we have to live, don't we? And he thinks I ought to do without the extra man for the car, and

the second man in the house, and heaven alone knows what. I'm at the end of my patience."

Audrey made a resolution. After all, what mattered was that things should be more tolerable for Clayton. She

"Why don't you try to do what he wants, Natalie? He must have a reason for asking you. And it would please

"He's so awfully fine, Natalie. He's well, he's rather big. And sometimes I think, if you just tried, he

"Happiness!" Natalie's voice was high. "That sounds like Clay. Happiness! Don't you suppose I want to be

"You'd try it for a year. Then you'd give it up. It's one thing to admire a man. It's quite different being married

Her voice trailed off before the dark vision of her domestic, unhappiness. And again, as with Graham and his

father, it was what she did not say that counted. Audrey came close to hating her just then.

So far the conversation had not touched on Graham, and now they were turning in the new drive. Already the

lawns Were showing green, and extensive plantings of shrubbery were putting out their pale new buds.

Audrey, bending forward in the car, found it very lovely, and because it belonged to Clay, was to be his

home, it thrilled her, just as the towering furnaces of his mill thrilled her, the lines of men leaving at nightfall.

The house amazed her. Even Natalie's enthusiasm had not promised anything so stately or so vast. Moving

behind her through great empty rooms, to the sound of incessant hammering, over which Natalie's voice was

raised shrilly, she was forced to confess that, between them, Natalie and Rodney had made a lovely thing.

She felt no jealousy when she contrasted it with her own small apartment. She even felt that it was the sort of

For, although it had been designed as a setting for Natalie, although every colorscheme, almost every chair,

had been bought with a view to forming a background for her, it was too big, too massive. It dwarfed her.

Outofdoors, Audrey lost that feeling. In the formal garden Natalie was charmingly framed. It was like her,

beautifully exact, carefully planned, already with its spring borders faintly glowing.

"You're so comforting," she said. "Clay thinks it isn't homelike. He says it's a show place which it ought to

be. It cost enough and he hates show places. He really ought to have a cottage. Now let's see the

But at the pool she lost her gayety. The cement basin, still empty, gleamed white in the sun, and Natalie,

"It was for Graham," she said at last. "We were going to have weekend parties, and all sorts of young

"He's probably going into the army. He'd have never thought of it, but Clayton shows in every possible way

that he thinks he ought to go. What is the boy to do? His father driving him to what may be his death!"

Natalie laughed, her little mirthless laugh. "Much you know what his father would do! I'll tell you this,

Audrey. If Graham goes, and anything happens to him, I'll never forgive Clay. Never."

Audrey had not suspected such depths of feeling as Natalie's eyes showed under their penciled brows. They

"You'll talk to Clay, won't you? He'll listen to you. He has a lot of respect for your opinion. I want you to go

to him, Audrey. I brought you here to ask you. I'm almost out of my mind. Why do you suppose I play around

with Rodney? I've got to forget, that's all. And I've tried everything I know, and failed. He'll go, and I'll lose

"He'll be in danger. I shall be worrying about him every moment." She threw out her hands in what was as

unrestrained a gesture as she ever made. "Look at me!" she cried. "I'm getting old under it. I have lines about

my eyes already. I hate to look at myself in the morning. And I'm not old. I ought to be at my best now."

Natalie's anxiety was for Graham, but her pity was for herself. Audrey's heart hardened.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't go to Clay. I feel as I think he does. If Graham wants to go, he should be free to

do it. You're only hurting him, and your influence on him, by holding him back."

"You and Clay! You even talk alike. It's all a pose, this exalted attitude. Even this war is a pose. It's a national

attitude we've struck, a great nation going to rescue humanity, while the rest of the world looks on and

She turned and went back to the house, leaving Audrey by the swimmingpool. She sat on the edge of one of

the stone benches, feeling utterly dreary and sad. To make a sacrifice for a worthy object was one thing. To

throw away a life's happiness for a spoiled, petulant woman was another. It was too high a price to pay.

Mingled with her depression was pity for Clayton; for all the years that he had lived with this woman: and

After a time she saw the car waiting, and she went slowly back to the house. Natalie was already inside, and

she made no apologies whatever. The drive back was difficult. Natalie openly sulked, replied in

monosyllables, made no effort herself until they were in the city again. Then she said, "I'm sorry I asked you

"Not if it is to do what you said. But I wish you wouldn't misunderstand me, Natalie. I'm awfully sorry. We

When Clayton had returned from Washington, one of the first problems put up to him had been Herman

"He doesn't say much," he said. "Never did. But I gather things are changed, now we are in the war

Clayton was doubtful. If he could have conferred with Dunbar he wouid have felt more comfortable, but

Dunbar was away on some mysterious errand connected with the Military Intelligence Department. He sat

considering, tapping on his desk with the handle of his pen. Of course things were different now. A good

many Germans whose sympathies had, as between the Fatherland and the Allies, been with Germany, were

now driven to a decision between the land they had left and the land they had adopted. And behind Herman

"I don't know. She left some weeks ago. It's talk around the plant that he beat her up, and she got out. Those

There was more talk in the offices than Hutchinson repeated. Graham's fondness for Anna, her slavish

devotion to him, had been pretty well recognized. He wondered if Clayton knew anything about it, or the

"Fired," said Hutchinson laconically. "Got to spreading the brotherhood of the world idea sweat brothers,

he calls them. But he was mighty careful never to get in a perspiration himself."

So Herman was taken on at the new munition plant. He was a citizen, he owned property, he had a record of

long service behind him. And, at first, he was minded to preserve that record intact. While he had by now

added to his rage against the Fatherland's enemies a vast and sullen fury against invested capital, his German

He would sit through fiery denunciations of wealth, nodding his head slowly in agreement. He was perfectly

aware that in Gus's little back room dark plots were hatched. Indeed, on a certain April night Rudolph had

"In about fifteen minutes," he said, consulting his watch in the doorway, "I'm going to show you something

And in fifteen minutes to the dot the great railroad warehouses near the city wharf had burst into flames.

Herman had watched without comment, while Rudolph talked incessantly, boasting of his share in the

"About a million dollars' worth of fireworks there," he said, as the glare dyed their faces red. "All stuff for the

Allies." And he boasted, "When the cat sits on the pickhandle, brass buttons must go."

"But it is dangerous," was his later comment. "Sometimes they will learn, and then?"

His caution had exasperated Rudolph almost to frenzy. And as time went on, and one man after another of the

organization was ferreted out at the new plant and dismissed, the sole remaining hope of the organization was

Herman. With his reinstatement their hopes had risen again, but to every suggestion so far he had been deaf.

He would listen approvingly, but at the end, when he found the talk veering his way, and a circle of intent

Then he would pay his score, but never by any chance Rudolph's or the others, and go home to his empty

house. But recently the plant had gone on double turn, and Herman was soon to go on at night. Here was the

gang's opportunity. Everything was ready but Herman himself. He continued interested, but impersonal. For

the sake of the Fatherland he was willing to have the plant go, and to lose his work. He was not at all daunted

by the thought of the deaths that would follow. That was war. Anything that killed and destroyed was fair in

war. But he did not care to place himself in danger. Let those young hotheads do the work.

Rudolph, watching him, bided his time. The ground was plowed and harrowed, ready for the seed, and

Herman had not beaten Anna. Rudolph had carried her up to her bed, and Herman, following slowly, strap in

hand, had been confronted by the younger man in the deorway of the room where Anna lay, conscious but

"You can use that thing later," Rudolph said. "She's sick now. Better let her alone."

"I will teach her to run away," Herman muttered thickly. "She left me, her father, and threw away a good job

And, after a time, Herman had followed him down, but he still clung doggedly to the strap.

Rudolph led the way outside, and here in the darkness he told Anna's story, twisted and distorted through his

own warped mind, but convincing and partially true. Herman's silence began to alarm him, however, and

"Don't be a fool," Rudolph entreated. "You can beat her to death, and what do you get out of it? She'll run

Their voices, raised and angry, penetrated through Anna's haze of fright and faintness. She sat up in the bed,

ready to spring to the window if she heard steps on the stairs. When none came, but the voices, lowered now,

Sounds traveled clearly up the narrow enclosed stairway. She stood there, swaying slightly, until at last her

legs would no longer support her. She crouched on the floor, a hand clutching her throat, lest she scream. And

She did not sleep at all. The night had been too full of horrors. And she was too ill to attempt a second flight.

Besides, where could she go? Katie was not there. She could see ber empty little room across, with its cot bed

and tawdry dresser. Before, too, she had had Grahams protection to count on. Now she had nothing.

When she went back to bed it was almost dawn. She heard Herman come up, heard the heavy thump of his

shoes on the floor, and the creak immediately following that showed he had lain down without undressing.

By the absence of his resonant snoring she knew he was not sleeping, either. She pictured him lying there, his

At half past six she got up and went downstairs. Almost immediately she heard his stockinged feet behind

He came down, and sat down in the sittingroom. From where he sat he could survey the kitchen, and she

knew his eyes were on her. His very quiet terrified her, but although the strap lay on the table he made no

move toward it. She built a fire and put on the kettle, and after a time she brought him some coffee and some

bread. He took it without a word, Sick as she was, she fell to cleaning up the dirty kitchen. She went outside

for a pail, to find him behind her in the doorway. Then she knew what he intended to do. He was afraid, for

some reason, to beat her again, but he was going to watch her lest again she make her escape. The silence,

All day she worked, and only once did Herman lose sight of her. That was when he took a ladder, and outside

the house nailed all the upper windows shut. He did it with German thoroughness, hammering deliberately,

placing his nails carefully. After that he went to the corner grocery, but before he went he spoke the first

She went, and he locked her in. She knew then that she was a prisoner. When he was at the mill at night,

while he slept during the day, she was to be locked up in her stuffy, airless room. When he was about she

"If you lock me up and don't let me work," she persisted, "you'll only be cutting off your nose to spite your

She thought he was going to speak then, but he did not. She put his food on the table and he ate gluttonously,

as he always did. She did not sit down. She drank a little coffee, standing at the stove, and watched the back

of his head with hate in her eyes. He could eat like that, when he stood committed to a terrible thing!

It was not until late in the day that it began to dawn on her how she was responsible. She was getting stronger

then and more able to think. She followed as best she could the events of the last months, and she saw that, as

surely as though a malevolent power had arranged it, the thing was the result of her infatuation for raham.

She was in despair, and she began to plan how to get word to Graham of what was impending. She scrawled a

note to Graham, telling him where she was and to try to get in touch with her somehow. If he would come

around four o'clock Herman was generally up and off to the grocer's, or to Gus's saloon for his afternoon

"I'll break a window and talk to you," she wrote. "I'm locked in when he's out. My window is on the north

But several days went by and the postman did not appear. Herman had put a padlock on the outside of her

bedroom door, and her hope of finding a second key to fit the doorlock died then.

It had become a silent, bitter contest between the two of them, with two advantages in favor of the girl. She

was more intelligent than Herman, and she knew the thing he was planning to do. She made a careful survey

of her room, and she saw that with a screwdriver she could unfasten the hinge of her bedroom door.

Herman, however, always kept his tools locked up. She managed, apparently by accident, to break the point

off a knife, and when she went up to her room one afternoon to be locked in while Herman went to Gus's

It was a sorry tool, however. Driven by her shaking hand, there was a time when she almost despaired. And

time was flying. The postman, when he came, came at five, and she heard the kitchen clock strike five before

the first screw fell out into her hand. She got them all out finally, and the door hung crazily, held only by the

padlock. She ran to the window. The postman was coming along the street, and she hammered madly at the

glass. When he saw her he turned in at the gate, and she got her letter and ran down the stairs.

"If I slide a letter out under the door, will you take it to the postoffice for me? It's important."

She had put it partially under the door when a doubt crept into her mind. That was not Bniggs's voice. She

made a frantic effort to draw the letter back, but stronger fingers than hers had it beyond the door. She

clutched, held tight. Then she heard a chuckle, and found herself with a corner of tbe envelope in her hand.

She ran madly up the stairs again, and tried with shaking fingers to screw the doorhinges into place again.

She fully expected that they would kill her. She heard Briggs go out, and after a time she heard Rudolph

trying to kick in the house door. Then, when the last screw was back in place, she heard Herman's heavy step

Had Herman not been obsessed with the thing he was to do, he might have beaten her to death that night. But

he did not. She remained in her room, without food or water. She had made up her mind to kill herself with

the knife if they came up after her, but the only sounds she heard were of high voices, growing lower and

After that, for days she was a prisoner. Herman moved his bed downstairs and slept in the sittingroom, the

five or six hours of daylight sleep which were all he required. And at night, while he was at the mill,

Rudolph sat and dozed and kept watch below. Twice a day some meager provisions were left at the top of the

stairs and her door was unlocked. She would creep out and get them, not because she was hungry, but

because she meant to keep up her strength. Let their vigilance slip but once, and she meant to be ready.

She learned to interpret every sound below. There were times when the fumes from burning food came up the

staircase and almost smothered her. And there were times, she fancied, when Herman weakened and Rudolph

talked for hours, inciting and inflaming him again. She gathered, too, that Gus's place was under surveillance,

and more than once in the middle of the night stealthy figures came in by the garden gate and conferred with

Rudolph downstairs. Then, one evening, in the dusk of the May twilight, she saw three of them come, one

rather tall and military of figure, and one of them carried, very carefully, a cheap suitcase.

One morning, in his mail, Clayton Spencer received a clipping. It had been cut from a socalled society

journal, and it was clamped to the prospectus of a firm of private detectives who gave information for divorce

First curiously, then with mounting anger, Clayton read that the wife of a prominent munition manufacturer

was being seen constantly in out of the way places with the young architect who was building a palace for her

out of the profiteer's new wealth. "It is quite probable," ended the notice, "that the episode will end in an

Clayton did not believe the thing for a moment. He was infuriated, but mostly with the journal, and with the

insulting inference of the prospectus. He had a momentary clear vision, however, of Natalie, of her idle days,

of perhaps a futile last clutch at youth. He had no more doubt of her essential integrity than of his own. But

he had a very distinct feeling that she had exposed his name to cheap scandal, and that for nothing.

Had there been anything real behind it, he might have understood, in his new humility, in his new knowledge

of impulses stronger than any restraints of society, he would quite certainly have made every allowance. But

for a whim, an indulgence of her incorrigible vanity! To get along, to save Natalie herself, he was stifling the

That was one view of it. The other was that Natalie was as starved as he was. If he got nothing from her, he

gave her nothing. How was he to blame her? She was straying along dangerous paths, but he himself had

Suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps, for once, Natalie was in earnest. Perhaps Rodney was, too. Perhaps

each of them had at last found something that loomed larger than themselves. In that case? But everything he

knew of Natalie contradicted that. She was not a woman to count anything well lost for love. She was playing

Going uptown that night he pondered the question of how to take up the matter with her. It would be absurd,

under the circumstances, to take any virtuous attitude. He was still undetermined when he reached the house.

He found Marion Hayden there for dinner, and Graham, and a spirited threecorner discussion going on

which ceased when he stood in the doorway. Natalie looked irritated, Graham determined, and Marion was

As he went away he had again the feeling of being shut out of something which concerned Graham.

Dinner was difficult. Natalie was obviously sulking, and Graham was rather taciturn. It was Marion who kept

the conversation going, and he surmised in her a repressed excitement, a certain triumph.

At last Natalie roused herself. The meal was almost over, and the servants had withdrawn.

"I wish you would talk sense to Graham, Clay," she said, fretfully. "I think he has gone mad."

"I do. With your father needing you, and with all the men there are who can go."

"I don't understand. If he wants to enter the army, that's up to him, isn't it?"

There was a brief silence. Clayton found Natalie's eyes on him, uneasy, resentful.

"That's just it. I've promised mother not to, unless she gives her consent. And she won't give it."

Clayton saw her appealing glance at Marion, but that young lady was lighting a cigaret, her eyelids lowered.

"It's rather a family affair, isn't it?" he asked. "Suppose we wait until we are alone. After all, there is no

Marion looked at him, and he caught a resentment in her glance. The two glances struck fire.

"I don't think my opinion is of any particular importance. As Mr. Spencer says, it's really a family matter."

Her insolence was gone. Marion was easy. She knew Natalie's game; it was like her own. But this big

squarejawed man at the head of the table frightened her. And he hated her. He hardly troubled to hide it, for

In the drawingroom things were little better. Natalie had counted on Marion's cooperation, and she had

failed her. She pleaded a headache and went upstairs, leaving Clayton to play the host as best he could.

Marion wandered into the musicroom, with its bare polished floor, its lovely painted piano, and played a

little gay, charming little things, clever and artful. Except when visitors came, the piano was never touched,

but now and then Clayton had visualized Audrey there, singing in her husky sweet voice her little French

Graham moved restlessly about the room, and Clayton felt that he had altered lately. He looked older, and not

happy. He knew the boy wanted to talk about Natalie's opposition, but was hoping that he would broach the

subject. And Clayton rather grimly refused to do it. Those next weeks would show how much of the man

"Give me your love for a day; A night; an hour. If the wages of sin are Death I'm willing to pay."

She sang it in her clear passionless voice. Brave words, Clayton thought, but there were few who would pay

such wages. This girl at the piano, what did she know of the thing she sang about? What did any of the young

They always construed love in terms of passion. But passion was ephemeral. Love lived on. Passion took, but

"Don't you think she ought to know? If she intends to enter the family, she has a right to know that she is not

marrying into great wealth. I don't suggest," he added, as Graham colored hotly, "that it will make any

He was called to the telephone, and when he came back he found them in earnest conversation. The girl

And afterward Clayton was forced to admit an element of sincerity in her voice. She had had a

disappointment, but she was very game. Her admiration surprised him. He was nearer to liking her than he

"And I have told Graham that he must not let you make all the sacrifices. Of course he is going to enlist."

She had turned her defeat into a triumph against Natalie. Clayton knew then that she would never marry

Natalie was in her dressingroom. She had not undressed, but was standing by a window. She made no sign

that she heard him enter, and he hesitated. Why try to talk things out with her? Why hurt her? Why not let

things drift along? There was no hope of bettering them. One of two things he must do, either tear open the

Yet when she turned to him he saw the real distress in her face, and his anger died.

"I didn't want to hurt you, Natalie. I honestly tried. But you know how I feel about that girl."

"I dare say! You were relieved that she was going. If you would only be ordinarily civil to her oh, don't you

see? She could keep Graham from going into this idiotic war. You can't. I can't. I've tried everything I know.

"His soul!" She burst into hysterical laughter. "You to talk about souls! That's that's funny."

"Natalie, dear." He was very grave, very gentle. "Has it occurred to you that we are hitting it off rather badly

"How? Because I don't think as you do? We got on well enough before this war came along."

"Happiness again! Did you come upstairs tonight, with this thing hanging over us, to talk about happiness?

That's funny, too." But her eyes were suddenly suspicious. There was something strange in his voice.

"Let's forget that for a moment. Graham will make his own decision. But, before we leave that, let me tell

you that I love him as much as you do. His going means exactly as much. It's only "

"Another point we differ on," she finished for him. "Go on. You are suddenly concerned about my happiness.

I'm touched, Clay. You have left me all winter to go out alone, or with anybody who might be sorry enough

for me to pick me up, and now?" Suddenly her eyes sharpened, and she drew her breath quickly. "You've

"Natalie! Don't look like that! I don't believe it, of course. It's stupid. I wasn't going to tell you. You don't

She let him put an arm around her and hold her, as he would a scared child. There was no love for her in it,

but a great pity, and acute remorse that he could hold her so and care for her so little.

His conviction of his own failure to her made him very tender. He talked to her, as she stood with her face

buried in the shoulder of his coat, of the absurdity of her fear, of his own understanding, and when she was

"I am not angry," he said. "And I'm not fudging you in any way. But you know how things are between us.

We have been drifting apart for rather a long time. It's not your fault. Perhaps it is mine. Probably it is. I

know I don't make you happy. And sometimes I think things have either got to be better or worse."

"Oh, happiness! You are always raving about happiness. There isn't any such thing."

When he found no immediate answer, she was uneasy. The prospect of any change in their relationship

frightened her. Like all weak women, she was afraid of change. Her life suited her. Even her misery she loved

and fed on. She had pitied herself always. Not love, but fear of change, lay behind her shallow, anxious eyes.

Yet he could not hurt her. She had been foolish, but she had not been wicked. In his new humility he found

"Then it must have been in your mind. Let me see the clipping, Clay. I've tried to forget what it said."

She took it, still pinned to the prospectus, and bent over them both. When she had examined them, she

continued to stand with lowered eyelids, turning and crumpling them. Then she looked up.

"I had no intention of threatening you, my dear. You ought to know me better. That clipping was sent me

attached to the slip. The only reason I let you see it was because I think you ought to know how the most

"You couldn't divorce me if you wanted to." Then her defiance faded in a weak terror. She began to cry,

shameless frightened tears that rolled down her cheeks. She reminded him that she was the mother of his

child, that she had sacrificed her life to both of them, and that now they would both leave her and turn her

Utter hopelessness kept him dumb. He knew of old that she would cry until she was ready to stop, or until she

had gained her point. And he knew, too, that she expected him to put his arms around her again, in token of

his complete surrender. The very fact hardened him. He did not want to put his arms around her. He wanted,

indeed, to get out into the open air and walk off his exasperation. The scent in the room stifled him.

When he made no move toward her she gradually stopped crying, and gave way to the rage that was often

"Good God, I haven't even mentioned divorce. I only said we must try to get along better. To agree."

"Which means, I dare say, that I am to agree with you!" But she had one weapon still. Suddenly she smiled a

little wistfully, and made the apparently complete surrender that always disarmed him.

"I'll be good from now on, Clay. I'll be very, very good. Only don't be always criticizing me."

She held up her lips, and after a second's hesitation he kissed her. He knew he was precisely where he had

been when he started, and he had a hopeless sense of the futility of the effort he had made. Natalie had got by

with a bad halfhour, and would praceed to forget it as quickly as she always forgot anything disagreeable.

Still, she was in a more receptive mood than usual, and he wondered if that would not be as good a time as

any to speak about his new plan as to the mill. He took an uneasy turn or two about the room, feeling her eyes

She had relaxed like a kitten in her big chair, and was lighting one of the small, gilttipped cigarets she

He hesitated. To talk to Natalie about business meant reducing it to its most elemental form.

"Have you ever thought that this war of ours means more than merely raising armies?"

"I haven't thought about this war at all. It's too absurd. A lot of politicians?" She shrugged her shoulders.

"I knew we'd get to money sooner or later," she observed, resignedly. "All right. We'll be taxed, so we'll cut

down on the country house go on. I can say it before you do. But don't say we'll have to do without the

"Poor old Clay," she said, with the caressing tone she used when she meant to make no concession. "I do

spend money, don't I? But I do make you comfortable, you know. And what is what I spend, compared with

"It's just that. I don't think I can consistently go on making a profit on this war, now that we are in it."

He explained then what he meant, and watched her face set into the hard lines he knew so well. But she

"I don't think you have the remotest idea of doing it. You like to play at the heroic. You can see yourself

doing it, and every one pointing to you as the man who threw away a fortune. But you are humbugging

He went rather white. She knew the weakness in his armor, his hatred of anything theatrical, and with

"Suppose I tell you I have already offered the plant to the government, at a nominal profit."

She passed him, moving swiftly, and went into her bedroom. He heard her lock the door behind her.

Audrey had made a resolution, and with characteristic energy had proceeded to carry it out. She was no

longer needed at the recruiting stations. After a month's debate the conscription law was about to be passed,

made certain by the frank statement of the British Commission under Balfour as to the urgency of the need of

For the first time the Allies laid their cards face up on the table, and America realized to what she was

committed. Almost overnight a potential army of hundreds of thousands was changing to one of millions. The

situation was desperate. Germany had more men than the Allies, and had vast eastern resources to draw on

In private conference with the President Mr. Balfour had urged haste, and yet more haste.

Audrey, reading her newspapers faithfully, felt with her exaltation a little stirring of regret. Her occupation,

such as it was, was gone. For the thin stream of men flowing toward the recruiting stations there was now to

be a vast movement of the young manhood of the nation. And she could have no place in it.

Almost immediately she set to work to find herself a new place. At first there seemed to be none. She went to

"I could learn quickly," she pleaded, "and surely there will not be enough nurses for such an army as we are

"But a special course. Surely I may have that. There are so many things one won't need in France."

The head of the training school smiled rather wistfully. They came to her so often now, these intelligent,

untrained women, all eagerness to help, to forget and unlive, if they could, their wasted lives.

But she did not intend to make capital of Chris's death. "Of course, that has nothing to do with my going. I

In the end, however, she had to give it up. In some hospitals they were already training nurses helpers, but

they were to relieve trained women for France. She went home to think it over. She had felt that by leaving

the country she would solve Clayton's problem and her own. To stay on, seeing him now and then, was

But there was something else. She had begun, that afternoon, to doubt whether she was fitted for nursing after

all. The quiet of the hospital, the allpervading odor of drugs, the subdued voice and quiet eyes of the head of

the training school, as of one who had looked on life and found it infinitely sad, depressed her. She had

walked home, impatient with herself, disappointed in her own failure. She thought dismally:

"I am of no earthly use. I've played all my life, and now I'm paying for it. I ought to." And she ran over her

pitiful accomplishments: "golf, bridge, ride, shoot, swim, sing (a little), dance, tennis, some French what a

She was glad that day to find Clare Gould waiting for her. As usual, the girl had brought her tribute, this time

some early strawberries. Audrey found her in the pantry arranging their leaves in a shallow dish.

The girl's admiration salved her wounded pride in herself. Then she saw, on a table, an envelope with her

"I couldn't rest until it was all paid up. And I'm getting along fine. I make a lot, really."

"We've gone on double turn. I rather like it at night. It's well, it's like something on the stage. The sparks fly

from the lathes, and they look like fireworks. And when they hammer on hot metal it's lovely."

She talked on, incoherent but glowing. She liked her big turret lathe. It gave her a sense of power. She liked

to see the rough metal growing smooth and shining like silver under her hands. She was naively pleased that

Audrey leaned back in her chair and listened. All this that Clare was talking about was Clayton's doing. He at

least had dreamed true. He was doing a man's part, too, in the war. Even this girl, whose hand Natalie

Clare was still talking. The draft would be hard on the plant. They were shorthanded now. There was talk of

"I don't care about my hands. The question is, could I do it? I don't seem able to do anything else."

"Why, yes." Clare was reluctant. "I can, and you're a lot cleverer than I am. But it's hard. It's rough, and some

Audrey, however, was meaning it. It seemed to her, all at once, the way out. Here was work, needed work.

Work that she could do. For the first time in months she blessed the golf and riding that had kept her fit.

"He is not to know, Clare," Audrey said briskly. "You are quite right. He would probably be very mannish

about it. So we won't tell him. And now, how shall I go about getting in? Will they teach me, or shall I have

Clare explained while, for she was determined not to lose a minute, Audrey changed into her plainest clothes.

They would be in time, if they hurried, before the employment department closed. There were women in

charge there. They cardindexed you, and then you were investigated by the secret service and if you were all

"Mercy! It's enough," said Audrey, impatiently. "Do you mean to say they'll come here?"

She glanced around her rooms, littered with photographs of people well known to the public through the

society journals, with its high bright silver vases, its odd gifts of porcelain, its grand piano taking up more

"If they come here," she deliberated, "they won't take me, Clare. They'll be thinking I'm living on German

So, in the end, she did not go to the munition works. She went roomhunting instead, with Clare beside her,

very uncomfortable on the street for fear Audrey would be compromised by walking with her. And at six

o'clock that evening a young woman with a softly inflected voice and an air of almost humorous enjoyment

of something the landlady failed to grasp, was the tenant, for one month's rent in advance, of a room on South

"I can't bear to think of your sleeping in that bed, Mrs. Valentine," she protested. "It dips down so."

"I shan't have much time to sleep, anyhow. And when I do so I shall be so tired,! What wa's the name I

"She surprised me, or I'd have thought of a prettier one." She was absurdly highspirited, although the next

day's ordeal rather worried her when she thought about it. She had, oddly enough, no trepidation abont the

work itself. It was passing the detectives in the employment department that worried her. As a matter of fact,

however, there was no ordeal. Her card was carried to the desk in the corner, where the two men sat on whose

decisions might so easily rest the safety of the entire plant, and they surveyed her carefu1ly. Audrey looked

ahead, and waited. They would came over and question her, and the whole fabric she had built would be

destroyed. But nothing happened. She was told she would be notified in a day or two if she would be taken

She had a bad moment, however, for Graham came through the office on his way out, and stopped for a

moment directly in front of her. Her heart almost stopped beating, and she dropped her glove and stooped to

pick it up. When she sat erect again he was moving on. But even her brief glance had showed her that the boy

She went to her rented room at once, for she must be prepared for inquiries about her. During the interval she

arranged for the closing of her apartment and the storing of her furniture. With their going would depart the

last reminders of the old life, and she felt a curious sense of relief. They had little happiness to remind her of,

and much suffering. The world had changed since she had gathered them together, and she had changed with

it. She was older and sadder. But she would not have gone back. Not for anything would she have gone back.

She had one thing to do, however, before she disappeared. She had promised to try to find something for

Delight, and she did it with her usual thoroughness and dispatch. She sent for her that last day in the

apartment, when in the morning she had found at the Perry Street room a card telling her to report the

following night. When Delight came in she found the little apartment rather bare and rather dreary, but

"Going away for a little while," she explained. "I've stored a lot of stuff. And now, my dear, do you really

"All right. That's settled. I've got the thing I spoke about, in one of the officers' trainingcamps. But

remember, Delight, this is not going to be a romantic adventure. It's to be work."

"Poor little thing," Audrey reflected to herself. And aloud: "Good! Of course I know you're sincere about

Delight was pleased, but Audrey saw that she was not happy. Even when the details had been arranged she

still sat in her straight chair and made no move to go. And Audrey felt that the next move was up to her.

"What's the news about Graham Spencer?" she inquired. "He'll be drafted, I suppose."

"His mother is trying that now," she said. "Ever since his engagement was broken?"

"Yes. I don't know why. But it's off. Anyhow Mrs. Spencer is telling everybody he can't be spared."

Delight rose and drew down her veil with hands that Audrey saw were trembling a little.

"How can he make his own decision?" she asked. "He may think it's his own, but it's hers, Mrs. Spencer's.

She's always talking, always. And she's plausible. She can make him think black is white, if she wants to."

"I? He'd think I'd lost my mind! Besides, that isn't it. If you like a man, you want him to do the right thing

But she did not need Delight's hasty and flushed championship of Graham to tell her what she already knew.

After she had gone, Audrey sat alone in her empty rooms and faced a great temptation. She was taking herself

out of Clayton's life. She knew that she would be as lost to him among the thousands of workers in the

munition plant as she would have been in Russia. According to Clare, he rarely went into the shops

Of course "out of his life" was a phrase. They would meet again. But not now, not until they had had time to

become resigned to what they had already accepted. The war would not last forever. And then she thought of

their love, which had been born and had grown, always with war at its background. They had gone along well

enough until this winter, and then everything had changed. Chris, Natalie, Clayton, herself none of them

were quite what they had been. Was that one of the gains of war, that sham fell away, and people revealed

The temptation was to hear Clayton's voice again. She went to the telephone, and stood with the instrument in

her hands, thinking. Would it comfort him? Or would it only bring her close for a moment, to emphasize her

She put it down, and turned away. When, some time later, the taxicab came to take her to Perry Street, she

was lying on her bed in the dusk, facedown and arms outstretched, a lonely and pathetic figure, all her

courage dead for the moment, dead but for the desire to hear Clayton's voice again before the silence closed

She got up and pinned on her hat for the last time, before the mirror of the little inlaid dressingtable. And

"Well, I've got the present, anyhow," she considered. "I'm not going either to wallow in the past or peer into

The prospect cheered her. After all, work was the great solution. It was the great healer, too. That was why

She took a final glance around her stripped and cheerless rooms. How really little things mattered! All her life

The shabby room on Perry Street called her. Work called, beckoned to her with calloused, useful hands. She

One day late in May, Clayton, walking uptown in lieu of the golf he had been forced to abandon, met

Doctor Haverford on the street, and found his way barred by that rather worriedlooking gentleman.

"I was just going to see you, Clayton," he said. "About two things. I'll walk back a few blocks with you."

"I'm going in," he announced. "Regimental chaplain. I've got a year's leave of absence. I'm rather vague about

"I've been rather anxious," Doctor Haverford confided. "I've been a clergyman so long that I don't know just

how I'll measure up as a man. You know what I mean. I am making no reflection on the church. But I've been

sheltered and well, I've been looked after. I don't think I am physically brave. It would be a fine thing," he

"My salary is to go on. But I don't like that, either. If I hadn't a family I wouldn't accept it. Delight thinks I

shouldn't, anyhow. As a matter of fact, there ought to be no halfway measures about our giving ourselves. If

Clayton looked straight ahead. He knew that the rector had, for the moment, forgotten that he had a son to

"Why don't you accept a small allowance?" he inquired quietly. "Or, better still, why don't you let me know

how much it will take and let me do it? I'd like to feel that I was represented in France by you," he added.

And suddenly the rector remembered. He was most uncomfortable, and very flushed.

"Because, hang it all, Clayton, I'm not a parasite. I took the car, because it enabled me to do my parish work

Clayton glanced at him, at his fine erect old figure, his warmly flushed face. War did strange things. There

was a new light in the rector's once worldly if kindly eyes. He had the strained look of a man who sees great

things, as yet far away, and who would hasten toward them. Insensibly he quickened his pace.

"That's a fine way to look at it, but I can't do it. I've saved something, not much, but it will do for a year or

two. I'm glad you made the offer, though. It was like you, and it showed me the way. I can't let any man, or

And he stuck to it. Clayton, having in mind those careful canvasses of the congregation of Saint Luke's which

had every few years resulted in raising the rector's salary, was surprised and touched. After all, war was like

any other grief. It brought out the best or the worst in us. It roused or it crushed us.

"I'm a very fortunate man," he said, suddenly. "They're standing squarely behind me, at home. It's the women

"Which reminds me," went on the rector, "that I find Mrs. Valentine has gone away. I called on her today,

and she has given up her apartment. Do you happen to know where she is? She has left no address."

There in the busy street he felt a strange sense of loneliness. Always, although he did not see her, he felt her

presence. She walked the same streets. For the calling, if his extremity became too great, he could hear her

voice over the telephone. There was always the hope, too, of meeting her. Not by design. She had forbidden

that. But some times perhaps God would be good to them both, if they earned it, and they could touch hands

There was a sense of hurt, then, too. She had made this decision without telling him. It seemed incredible. A

dozen decisions a day he made, and when they were vital there was always in his mind the question as to

whether she would approve or not. He could not go to her with them, but mentally he was always consulting

"Do you think she has gone to France?" He knew his voice sounded stiff and constrained.

"I hope not. She was being so useful here. Of course, the draft law amazing thing, the draft law! Never

"Well!" he said. "Let me tell you, Clayton, that that girl has been recruiting men, night after night and day

after day. She's done wonders. Standing in a wagon, mind you, in the slums, or anywhere; I heard her one

night. By George, I went home and tore up a sermon I had been working on for days."

Why hadn't he known? Why hadn't he realized that that was exactly the sort of thing she would do? There

was bitterness in his heart, too. He might easily have stood unseen in the crowd, and have watched and

listened and been proud of her. Then, these last weeks, when he had been working, or dining out, or sitting

dreary and bored in a theater, she had been out in the streets. Ah, she lived, did Audrey. Others worked and

" in the rain," the rector was saying. "But she didn't mind it. I remember her saying to the crowd, 'It's

raining over here, and maybe it's raining on the fellows in the trenches. But I tell you, I'd rather be over there,

up to my waist in mud and water, than scurrying for a doorway here.' They had started to run out of the

In the rain! And after it was over she would go home, in some crowded bus or car, to her lonely rooms, while

he rolled about the city in a limousine! It was cruel of her not to have told him, not to have allowed him at

"I've been very busy. I hadn't heard," he said, slowly. "Is it was it generally known?"

He learned that night that Natalie had known, and he surprised a little uneasiness in her face.

"I heard about it," she said. "I can't imagine her making a speech. She's not a bit oratorical."

"I heard that a young clergyman was taking her round," she said, and changed the subject. But he knew that

she was either lying or keeping something from him. In those days of tension he found her halftruths more

irritating than her rather childish falsehoods. In spite of himself, however, the thought of the young

That night, stretched in the low chair in his dressingroom, under the reading light, he thought over things

carefully. If he loved her as he thought he did, he ought to want her to be happy. Things between them were

hopeless and wretched. If this clergyman, or Sloane, or any other man loved her, and he groaned as he

thought how lovable she was, then why not want for her such happiness as she could find?

He slept badly that night, and for some reason Audrey wove herself into his dreams of the new plant. The

roar of the machinery took on the soft huskiness of her voice, the deeper note he watched for and loved.

Anna Klein stood in her small room and covered her mouth with her hands, lest she shriek aloud. She knew

quite well that the bomb in the suitcase would not suffice to blow up the whole great plant. But she knew

The shells were not loaded at the Spencer plant. They were shipped away for that. But the fuses were loaded

there, and in the small brick house at the end of the fuse building there were stored masses of explosive,

enough to destroy a town. It was there, of course, that Herman was to place the bomb. She knew how he

would o it, carefully, methodically, and with what a lumbering awkward gait he would make his escape.

Her whole mind was bent on giving the alarm. On escaping, first, and then on arousing the plant. But when

the voices below continued, long after Herman had gone, she was entirely desperate. Herman had not carried

out the suitcase. He had looked, indeed, much as usual as he walked out the garden path and closed the gate

behind him. He had walked rather slowly, but then he always walked slowly. She seemed to see, however, a

She dressed herself, with shaking fingers, and pinned on her hat. The voices still went on below, monotonous,

endless; the rasping of Rudolph's throat, irritated by cheap cigarets, the sound of glasses on the table, once a

laugh, guttural and mirthless. It was ten o'clock when she knew, by the pushing back of their chairs, that they

She was about to commence again the feverish unscrewing of the door hinges, when she heard Rudolph's step

on the stairs. She had only time to get to the back of her room, beside the bed, when she heard him try the

"I'm going out, but I'll be back in ten minutes. You try any tricks and I'll get you. See?"

She heard him turn and run lightly down the stairs. Only when she heard the click of the gate did she dare to

begin again at the door. She got downstairs easily, but she was still a prisoner. However, she found the high

little window into the coalshed open, and crawled through it, to stand listening. The street was quiet.

Once outside the yard she started to run. They would let her telephone from the drugstore, even without

money. She had no money. But the drugstore was closed and dark, and the threat of Rudolph's return

There were still paths down the steep hillside, dangerous things that hugged the edge of small, rocky

precipices, or sloped steeply to sudden turns. But she had played over the hill all her young life. She plunged

down, slipping and falling a dozen times, and muttering, some times an oath, some times a prayer,

"Oh, God, let me be in time. Oh, God, hold him up a while until I " then a slip. "If I fall now "

Only when she was down in the mill district did she try to make any plan. It was almost eleven then, and her

ears were tense with listening for the sound she dreaded. She faced her situation, then. She could not

telephone from a private house, either to the mill or to the Spencer house, what she feared, and the

paybooths of the telephone company demanded cash in advance. She was incapable of clear thought, or she

would have found some way out, undoubtedly. What she did, in the end, was to board an uptown car and

"I've got to get uptown," she panted. "I'll not go in. See? I'll stand here and you take me as far as you can.

The conductor hesitated. He had very little faith in human nature, but Anna's eyes were both truthful and

There is, in certain ranks, a tacit conspiracy against the police. The conductor hated them. They rode free on

his car, and sometimes kept an eye on him in the rush hours. They had a way, too, of letting him settle his

"Looks as though they'd come pretty close to grabbing you, he opened, by way of conversation. "But ten of

Anna nodded. She was faint and dizzy, and the car seemed to creep along. It was twenty minutes after eleven

"Good luck to you!" he said. "And you'd better get a better face on you than that. It's enough to send you up,

She hardly heard him. She began to run, and again she said over and over her little inarticulate prayer. She

knew the Spencer house. More than once she had walked past it, on Sunday afternoons, for the sheer pleasure

of seeing Graham's home. Well, all that was over now. Everything was over, unless

The Spencer house was dark, save for a low light in the hall. A new terror seized her. Suppose Graham saw

her. He might not believe her story. He might think it a ruse to see his father. But, as it happened, Clayton

He recognized her at once, and because he saw the distress on her face he brought her in at once. In the brief

moment that it required to turn on the lights he had jumped to a sickening conviction that Graham was at the

"Come into the library," he said. "We can talk in there." He led the way and drew up a chair for her. But she

"You think it's about Graham," she began. "it isn't, not directly, that is. And my coming is terrible, because

"Yes. Don't bother about that now. I'm not crazy or hysterical. I tell you I heard them. I've been a prisoner or

I'd have come sooner. Today they brought something dynamite or a bomb in a suitcase and it's gone

He was already at the telephone as she spoke. He called the mill first, and got the night superintendent. Then

he called a number Anna supposed was the police station, and at the same time he was ringing the

garagesignal steadily for his car. By the time he had explained the situation to the police, his car was rolling

under the portecochere beside the house. He was starting out, forgetful of the girl, when she caught him by

"You mustn't go!" she cried. "You'll be killed, too. It will all go, all of it. You can't be spared, Mr. Spencer.

"Of course I'm going," he said. "We'll get it in time. Don't you worry. You sit down here and rest, and when

it's all straightened out I'll come back. I suppose you can't go home, after this?"

He ran out, hatless, and a moment later she heard the car rush out into the night.

Five minutes passed. Ten. Anna Klein stood, staring ahead of her. When nothing happened she moved around

and sat down in the chair. She was frightfully tired. She leaned her head back and tried to think of something

to calm her shaking nerves, that this was Graham's home, that he sometimes sat in that very chair. But she

found that Graham meant nothing to her. Nothing mattered, except that her warning had been in time.

So intent was she on the thing that she was listening for that smaller, nearby sounds escaped her. So she did

not hear a door open upstairs and the soft rustle of a woman's negligee as it swept from stair to stair. But as

the footsteps outside the door she stood up quickly and looked back over her shoulder.

"Well?" she said. And on receiving no answer from the frightened girl, "What are you doing here?"

"Don't move, please," said Natalie's cold voice. "Stay just where you are." She reached behind the curtain at

the doorway, and Anna heard the faraway ringing of a bell, insistent and prolonged. The girl roused herself

"But he did. I'm telling you the truth. Indeed I am. I rang the bell, and he came to the door. I had something to

But Anna Klein did not answer. From far away there came a dull report followed almost immediately by a

second one. The windows rattled, and the house seemed to rock rather gently on its foundation. Then silence.

"I was too late," she said dully, and the next moment she was lying at Natalie's feet.

It was not until dawn that the full extent of the disaster was revealed. All night, by the flames from the sheds

in the yard, which were of wood and still burning, rescue parties had worked frantically. Two of the long

buildings, nearest to the fuse department, had collapsed entirely. Above the piles of fallen masonry might be

seen, here and there, the black mass of some machine or lathe, and it was there the search parties were

laboring. Luckily the fuse department had not gone double turn, and the night shift in the machineshop was

The fuse department was a roaring furnace, and repeated calls had brought in most of the fire companies of

the city. Running back and forth in the light of the flames were the firemen and such volunteer rescuers as

had been allowed through the police cordon. Outside that line of ropes and men were gathered a tragic crowd,

begging, imploring to be allowed through to search for some beloved body. Now and then a fresh explosion

The casualty list ran high. All night long ambulances stood in a row along the street, backed up to the curb

and waiting, and ever so often a silent group, in broken step, carried out some quiet covered thing that would

With the dawn Graham found his father. He had thrown off his coat and in his shirtsleeves was, with other

rescuers, digging in the ruins. Graham himself had been working. He was nauseated, weary, and unutterably

wretched, for he had seen the night superintendent and had heard of his father's message.

"That was what he said. I was to find him and hold him until he got here. But I couldn't find him. He may

Waves of fresh nausea swept over Graham. He sat down on a pile of bricks and wiped his forehead, clammy

"I hope to God he was burned alive," muttered the other man, surveying the scene. His eyes were reddened

"I was knocked down myself," he said. "I was out in the yard looking for Klein, and I guess I lay there quite a

"Not a lot. Twenty, perhaps. If I had my way I'd take every German in the country and boil 'em in oil. I didn't

It was after that that Graham saw his father, a strange, wildeyed Clayton who drove his pick with a sort of

mad strength, and at the same time gave orders in an unfamiliar voice. Graham, himself a disordered figure,

watched him for a moment. He was divided between fear and resolution. Some place in that debacle there lay

his own responsibility. He was still bewildered, but the fact that Anna's father had done the thing was

The urge to confession was stronger than his fears. Somehow, during the night, he had become a man. But

"I've had some coffee made at a house down the street. Won't you come and have it?"

Clayton straightened. He was very tired, and the yard was full of volunteers now, each provided at the gate

"I'll come," he said, and turned his pick over to a man beside him. He joined Graham, and for a moment he

looked into the boy's eyes. Then he put a hand on his shoulder, and together they walked out, past the line of

ambulances, into a street where the scattered houses showed not a single unshattered window, and the

His father's touch comforted the boy, but it made even harder the thing he had to do. For he could not go

through life with this thing on his soul. There had been a moment, after he learned of Herman's implication,

when he felt the best thing would be to kill himself, but he had put that aside. It was too easy. If Herman

Klein had done this thing because of Anna and himself, then he was a murderer. If he had done it because he

was a German, then he Graham had no right to die. He would live to make as many Germans as possible

"I've got something to tell you, father," he said, as they paused before the house where the coffee was ready.

Clayton nodded, and together they went inside. Even this house was partially destroyed. A piece of masonry

had gone through the kitchen, and standing on fallen bricks and plaster, a cheerful old woman was cooking

"It's bad," she said to Graham, as she poured the coffee into cups, "but it might have been worse, Mr.

Spencer. We're all alive. And I guess I'll understand what my boy's writing home about now. They've sure

Graham carried the coffee into the little parlor, where Clayton sat dropped on a low chair, his hands between

his knees. He was a strange, disheveled figure, gray of face and weary, and the hand he held out for the cup

was blistered and blackened. Graham did not touch his coffee. He put it on the mantel, and stood waiting

"Probably. I had a warning last night, but it was too late. I should have known, of course, but somehow I

For the first time in his life Graham saw his father weaken, the pitiful, ashamed weakness of a strong man.

His voice broke, his face twitched. The boy drew himself up; they couldn't both go to pieces. He could not

know that Clayton had worked all that night in that hell with the conviction that in some way his own son

"If Herman Klein did it, father, it was because he was the tool of a gang. And the reason he was a tool was

because he thought I was living with Anna. I wasn't. I don't know why I wasn't. There was every chance. I

If he had expected any outbreak from Clayton, he met none. Clayton sat looking ahead, and listening. Inside

of the broken windows the curtains were stirring in the fresh breeze of early morning, and in the kitchen the

"I had been flirting with her a little it wasn't much more than that, and I gave her a watch at Christmas. He

found it out, and he beat her. Awfully. She ran away and sent for me, and I met her. She had to hide for days.

"I think not, or he'd have gone to get her. But Rudolph Klein knew something. I took her out to dinner, to a

roadhouse, a few days ago, and she said she saw him there. I didn't. All that time, weeks, I'd never I'd never

"Well, I went, but I didn't stay. I couldn't. I guess she thought I was crazy. I went away, that's all. And the

next day I felt that she might be feeling as though I'd turned her down or something. And I felt responsible.

Maybe you won't understand. I don't quite myself. Anyhow, I went back, to let her know I wasn't quite a

brute, even if But she was gone. I'm not trying to excuse myself. It's a rotten story, for I was engaged to

Suddenly he sat down beside Clayton and buried his face in his hands. For some reason or other Clayton

found himself back in the hospital, that night when Joey lay still and quiet, and Graham was sobbing like a

child, prostrate on the white covering of the bed. With the incredible rapidity of thought in a mental crisis, he

saw the last months, the boy's desire to go to France thwarted, his attempt to interest himself in the business,

the tool Marion Hayden had made of him, Anna's doglike devotion, all leading inevitably to catastrophe. And

through it all he saw Natalie, holding Graham back from war, providing him with extra money, excusing him,

using his confidences for her own ends, insidiously sapping the boy's confidence in his father and himself.

"If Herman Klein had not done it, there were others who would, probably. It looks as though you had

He rose, and they stood, eyes level, father and son, in the early morning sunlight. And suddenly Graham's

arms were around his shoulders, and something tight around Clayton's heart relaxed. Once again, and now for

good, he had found his boy, the little boy who had not so long ago stood on a chair for this very embrace.

"I'm going to France, father," he said. "I'm going to pay them back for this. And out of every two shots I fire

Perhaps he had found his boy only to lose him, but that would have to be as God willed.

At ten o'clock he went up to the house, to change his wet and draggled clothing. The ruins were being

guarded by soldiers, and the work of rescue was still going on, more slowly now, since there was little or no

hope of finding any still living thing in that flameswept wreckage. He found Natalie in bed, with Madeleine

He felt that he could not talk to her just then. She had a morbid interest in horrors, and with the sights of that

night fresh in his mind he could not discuss them. He stopped, however, in her doorway.

"I'm glad you are resting," he said, "Better stay in bed today. It's been a shock."

"I'll tell you about that later. I haven't given it much thought yet. I don't know just how we stand."

"I shall never let Graham go back to it again. I warn you. I've been lying here for hours, thinking that it might

"I left a girl here last night, Natalie," he said. "Do you happen to know what became of her?"

"I should think I do. She fainted, or pretended to faint. The servants looked after her."

"I hope so. It is almost noon. Oh, by the way," she called, as he moved off, "there is a message for you. A

woman named Gould, from the Central Hospital. She wants to see you at once. They ave kept the telephone

Clare Gould! That was odd. He had seen her taken out, a bruised and moaning creature, her masses of fair

hair over her shoulders, her eyes shut. The surgeons had said she was not badly hurt. She might be worse than

they thought. The mention of her name brought Audrey before him. He hoped, wherever she was, she would

As soon as he had changed he called the hospital. The message came back promptly and clearly.

"We have a woman named Gould here. She is not badly hurt, but she is hysterical. She wants to see you, but

if you can't come at once I am to give you a message. Wait a moment. She has written it, but it's hardly

"It's about somebody you know, who had gone on night turn recently at your plant. I can't read the name. It

Afterward he did not remember hanging up the receiver, or getting out of the house. He seemed to come to

himself somewhat at the hospital, and at the door to Clare's ward his brain suddenly cleared. He did not need

Clare's story. It seemed that he knew it all, had known it long ages before. Her very words sounded like

"She was right beside me, and I was showing her about the lathe. They'd told me I could teach her. She was

The fact that Audrey had liked it broke down his scanty reserve of restraint. Clayton found himself looking

down at her from a great distance. She was very remote. Clare pulled herself together.

"When the first explosion came it didn't touch us. But I guess she knew it meant more. She said something

about the telephone and getting help and there'd be more, and she started to run. I just stood there, watching

Suddenly Clare seemed to disappear altogether. He felt something catch his arm, and the nurse's voice, very

Then he was swallowing a fluid that burned his throat, and Clare was crying with the sheet drawn to her

"You might look for the person here," she suggested. "We have had several brought in."

He was still dazed, but he followed her docilely. Audrey was not there. He seemed to have known that, too.

That there would be a long search, and hours of agony, and at the end the one thing he did not know was

All that afternoon he searched, going from hospital to hospital. And at each one, as he stopped, that curious

feeling of inner knowledge told him she was not there. But the same instinct told him she was not dead. He

would have known it if she was dead. There was no reasoning in it. He could not reason. But he knew,

Then, late in the afternoon, he found her. He knew that he had found her. It was as though, at the entrance of

the hospital, some sixth sense had told him this was right at last. He was quite steady, all at once. She was

Yet, for a time, it seemed all wrong. She was not conscious, had not roused since she was brought it. There

were white screens around her bed, and behind them she lay alone. They had braided her hair in two long

dark braids, and there was a bandage on one of her arms. She looked very young and very tired, but quite

His arrival bad caused a small stir of excitement, his own prominence, the disaster with which the country

was ringing. But for a few minutes, before the doctors arrived, he was alone with her behind the screen. It

was like being alone with his dead. Bent over her, his face pressed to one of her quiet hands, he whispered to

her all the little tendernesses, the aching want of her, that so long he had buried in his heart. Things be could

not have told her, waking, he told her then. It seemed, too, that she must rouse to them, that she must feel him

there beside her, calling her back. But she did not move. It was then, for the first time, that he wondered what

The doctors, coming behind the screen, found him sitting erect and still, staring ahead of him, with a strange

expression on his face. He had just decided that he could not, under any circumstances, live if she died.

It was rather a good thing for Clayton's sanity that they gave him hope. He was completely unnerved, tired

and desperate. Indeed, when they came in he had been picturing Audrey and himself, wandering hand in

band, very quietly and contentedly, in some strange world which was his rather hazy idea of the Beyond. It

The effort of meeting the staff roused him, and, with hope came a return to normality. There was much to be

done, special nurses, a private room, and rather reluctantly friends and relatives to be notified. Only for a

few minutes, out of all of life, had she been his. He must give her up now. Life had become one long

He did not go home at all that night. He divided his time between the plant and the hospital, going back and

forward. Each time he found the report good. She was still strong; no internal injuries had manifested

themselves, and the concussion would probably wear off before long. He wanted to be there when she first

opened her eyes. He was afraid she might be frightened, and there would be a bad minute when she

At midnight, going into the room, he found Mrs. Haverford beside Audrey's bed, knitting placidly. She

seemed to accept his being there as perfectly natural, and she had no sickroom affectations. She did not

"The nurse thinks she is coming round, Clayton," she said. "I waited, because I thought she ought to see a

Mrs. Haverford was eminently good for him. Her cheerful matteroffactuess her competent sanity, restored

his belief in a world that had seemed only chaos and death. How much, he wondered later, had Mrs.

Haverford suspected? He had not been in any condition to act a part. But whatever she suspected he knew

Audrey moved slightly, and he went over to her. When he glanced up again Mrs. Haverford had gone out.

So it was that Audrey came back to him, and to him alone. She asked no questions. She only lay quite still on

her white pillows, and looked at him. Even when he knelt beside her and drew her toward him, she said

nothing, but she lifted her uninjured hand and softly caressed his bent head. Clayton never knew whether

Mrs. Haverford had come back and seen that or not. He did not care, for that matter. It seemed to him just

then that all the world must know what was so vitally important, so transcendently wonderful.

Not until Audrey's eyes closed again, and he saw that she was sleeping, did he loosen his arms from around

When at last he went out to the stiffly furnished hospital parlor, he found Mrs. Haverford sitting there alone,

still knitting. But he rather thought she had been crying. There was an undeniably moist handkerchief on her

"She roused a little while ago," he said, trying to speak quietly, and as though Audrey's rousing were not the

"The dear child!" said Mrs. Haverford. "If she had died, after everything " Her plump face quivered.

"I'm afraid not." He went to a window and stood looking out. The city was not quiet, but its mighty roar of

the day was lowered to a monotonous, drowsy humming. From the east, reflected against lowhanging

clouds, was the dull red of his own steel mills, looking like the reflection of a vast conflagration.

"Some times," Mrs. Haverford was saying, "I wonder about things. People go along missing the best things in

life, and I suppose there is a reason for it, but some times I wonder if He ever meant us to go on, crucifying

Afterward, Clayton found that that bit of conversation with Mrs. Haverford took on the unreality of the rest of

that twentyfour hours. But one part of it stood out real and hopelessly true. There wasn't any answer!

Anna Klein had gone home, at three o'clock that terrible morning, a trembling, whitefaced girl. She had

done her best, and she had failed. Unlike Graham, she had no feeling of personal responsibility, but she felt

she could never again face her father, with the thing that she knew between them. There were other reasons,

too. Herman would be arrested, and she would be called to testify. She had known. She had warned Mr.

She knew where they were now. They would be at Gus's, in the back room, drinking to the success of their

scheme, and Gus, who was a German too, would be with them, offering a round of drinks on the house now

and then as his share of the night's rejoicing. Gus, who was already arranging to help draftdodgers by

She would have to go back, to get in and out again if she could, before Herman came back. She had no

clothes, except what she stood up in, and those in her haste that night were, only her print housedress with a

long coat. She would have to find a new position, and she would have to have her clothing to get about in.

She dragged along, singularly unmolested. Once or twice a man eyed her, but her white face and vacant eyes

She was barely able to climb the hill, and as she neared the house her trepidation increased. What if Herman

had come back? If he suspected her he would kill her. He must have been half mad to have done the thing,

anyhow. He would surely be half mad now. And because she was young and strong, and life was still a

mystery to be solved, she did not want to die. Strangely enough, face to face with danger there was still, in

the back of her head, an exultant thrill in her very determination to live. She would start over again, and she

"You bet I'll make good," she resolved. "Just give me a chance and I'll work my fool head off."

It was the darkest hour before the dawn when she reached the cottage. It was black and very still, and outside

the gate she stooped and slipped off her shoes. The window into the shed by which she had escaped was still

open, and she crouched outside, listening. When the stillness remained unbroken she climbed in, tense for a

Once inside, however, she drew a long breath. The doors were still locked, and the keys gone. So Herman

had not returned. But as she stood there, hurried stealthy footsteps came along the street and turned in at the

gate. In a panic she flew up the stairs and into her room, where the door still hung crazily on its hinges. She

stood there, listening, her heart pounding in her ears, and below she distinctly heard a key in the kitchen door.

She did the only thing she could think of. She lifted the door into place, and stood against it, bracing it with

Whoever it was was in the kitchen now, moving however more swiftly than Herman. She heard matches

She knew that it was Rudolph, and she braced herself mentally. Rudolph was keener than Herman. If he

found her door in that condition, and she herself dressed?! Working silently and still holding the door in

place, she flung off her coat. She even unpinned her hair and unfastened her dress.

When his signal remained unanswered a second time he called her by name, and she heard him coming up.

He was startled to hear her voice so close to the door. In the dark she heard him fumbling for the knob. He

happened on the padlock instead, and he laughed a little. By that she knew that he was not quite sober.

"Some sleep!" he said, and suddenly lurched against the door. In spite of her it yielded, and although she

braced herself with all her strength, his weight against it caused it to give way. It was a suspicious, crafty

"You little liar," he said thickly. And struck a match. She cowered away from him.

"I was going to run away, Rudolph," she cried. "He hasn't any business locking me in, I won't stand for it."

He put a hand out into the darkness, and finding her, tried to draw her to him. She struggled, and he released

her. All at once she knew that he was weak with fright. The bravado had died out of him. The face she had

Some one was walking along the street outside. She felt that he was listening, crouched ready to run; but the

"Look here, Anna," he said, when he had pulled himself together again. "I'm going to get out of this. I'm

"You'll know soon enough." Then he told her, hurriedly, that he was going away. He'd come back to get her

"Gus has a friend in a town on the Mexican border," he said. "He's got maps of the country to Mexico City,

and the Germans there fix you up all right. I'll get rich down there and some day I'll send for you? What's

He darted to the window, faintly outlined by a distant streetlamp. Three men were standing quietly outside

the gate, and a fourth was already in the garden, silently moving toward the house. She felt Rudolph brush by

"Now lie!" he whispered fiercely. "You haven't seen me. I haven't been here tonight."

Then he was gone. She ran to the window. The other three men were coming in, moving watchfully and

slowly, and Rudolph was at Katie's window, cursing. If she was a prisoner, so was Rudolph. He realized that

instantly, and she heard him breaking out the sash with a chair. At the sound the three figures broke into a

run, and she heard the sash give way. Almost instantly there was firing. The first shot was close, and she

knew it was Rudolph firing from the window. Some wild design of braining him from behind with a chair

flashed into her desperate mind, but when she had felt her way into Katie's room he had gone. The garden

below was quiet, but there was yelling and the crackling of underbrush from the hillside. Then a scattering

The hill paid but moderate attention to shots. They were usually merely pyrotechnic, and indicated rejoicing

rather than death. But here and there she heard a window raised, and then lowered again. The hill had gone

back to bed. Anna went into her room and dressed. For the first time it had occurred to her that she might be

held by the police, and the thought was unbearable. It was when she was making her escape that she found a

prostrate figure in the yard, and knew that one of Rudolph's shots had gone home. She could not go away and

leave that, not unless A terrible hatred of Herman and Rudolph and all their kind suddenly swept over her.

She would not run away. She would stay and tell all the terrible truth. It was her big moment, and she rose to

it. She would see it through. What was her own safety to letting this band of murderers escape? And all that

in the few seconds it took to reach the fallen figure. It was only when she was very close that she saw it was

"Tell Dunbar he went to the left," a voice was saying. "The left! They'll lose him yet."

"Hello," said Joey's voice. He considered that he was speaking very loud, but it was hardly more than a

whisper. "That wasn't your father, was it? The old boy couldn't jump and run like that."

He coughed a little, a gurgling cough that rather startled himself. But he was determined to be a man.

"I'll walk there myself in a minute. Unless your cousin Rudolph " His head dropped back on her arm. "I feel

"Lemme alone," he muttered. "I'm the first casualty in the American army! I " He made a desperate effort

to speak in a man's voice, but the higher boyish notes of sixteen conquered. "They certainly gave us hell

All at once he was very still. Anna spoke to him and, that failing, gave him a frantic little shake. But Joey had

The immediate outstanding result of the holocaust at the munitions works was the end of Natalie's dominion

aver Graham. She never quite forgave him the violence with which he threw off her shackles.

"If I'd been half a man I'd have been over there long ago," he said, standing before her, tall and young and

flushed. "I'd have learned my job by now, and I'd be worth something, now I'm needed."

"Well, you say you are going now. I should think you'd be satisfied. There's plenty of time for you to get the

"Glory! I don't want any glory. And as for plenty of time that's exactly what there isn't."

Puring the next few days she preserved an obstinate silence on the subject. She knew he had been admitted to

one of the officers' trainingcamps, and that he was making rather helpless and puzzled purchases. Going into

his room she would find a dressingcase of khaki leather, perhaps, or flannel shirts of the same indeterminate

hue. She would shed futile tears over them, and order them put out of sight. But she never offered to assist

Graham was older, in many ways. He no longer ran up and down the stairs whistling, and he sought every

opportunity to be with his father. They spent long hours together in the library, when, after a crowded day,

filled with the thousand, problems of reconstructions, Clayton smoked a great deal, talked a little, rather

shamefacedly after the manner of men, of personal responsibility in the war, and quietly watched the man

Out of those quiet hours, with Natalie at the theater or reading upstairs in bed, Clayton got the greatest

The past, with its tragedy, was gone. The future might hold even worse things. But just now he would live

each day as it came, working to the utmost, and giving his evenings to his boy. The nights were the worst. He

was not sleeping well, and in those long hours of quiet he tried to rebuild his life along stronger, sterner lines.

Love could have no place in it, but there was work left. He was strong and he was still young. The country

should have every ounce of energy in him. He would rebuild the plant, on bigger lines than before, and

He scarcely noticed Natalie's withdrawal from Graham and himself. When she was around he was his old

punctilious self, gravely kind, more than ever considerate. Beside his failure to her, her own failure to him

faded into insignificance. She was as she was, and through no fault of hers. But he was what he had made

Once or twice he had felt an overwhelming remorse toward her, and on one such occasion he had made a

"Don't go upstairs, Natalie," he had begged. "I am not very amusing, I know, but I'll try my best. I'll

promise not to touch on anything disagreeable." He had been standing in the hail, looking up at her on the

staircase, and he smiled. There was pleading behind the smile, an inarticulate feeling that between them

"You are never disagreeable," she had said, looking down with hostile eyes. "You are quite perfect."

On the morning of Graham's departure, however, he found her prepared to go to the railwaystation. She was

"Don't say that!" he cried. "Don't even think that. And for God's sake, Natalie, send him off with a smile.

He gave up then in despair. He saw that Graham watched her uneasily during the early breakfast, and he

surmised that the boy's own grip on his selfcontrol was weakened by the tears that dropped into her

coffeecup. He reflected bitterly that all over the country strong women, good women, were sending their

boys away to war, giving them with prayer and exaltation. What was wrong with Natalie? What was wrong

"You. It is always yourself, Natalie. Why don't you ever think of him?" He went to the door. "Countermand

the order for the limousine," he said to the butler, "and order the small car for Mr. Graham and myself."

She saw that he meant it. She was incredulous, reckless, angry, and thwarted for the first time in her

She turned and went slowly up the stairs. Graham, knocking at her door a few minutes later, heard the sound

When he saw she did not mean to open the door or to reply, he went rather heavily down the stairs.

But Clayton surmised a relief behind his regret, and in the train the boy's eyes were happier than they had

"I don't know how I'll come out, dad," he said. "But if I don't get through it won't be because I didn't try."

And he did try. The enormous interest of the thing gripped him from the start; There was romance in it, too.

He wore his first uniform, too small for him as it was, with immense pride. He rolled out in the morning at

reveille, with the feeling that he had just gone to bed, ate hugely at breakfast, learned to make his own

cotbed, and lined up on a vast dusty parade ground for endless evolutions in a boiling sun.

It was rather amusing to find himself being ordered about, in a stentorian voice, by Jackson. And when, in off

moments, that capable exchauffeur condescended to a few moments of talk and relaxation, the boy was

There were times when Graham doubted himself, however. There was one dreadful hour when Graham, in

the late afternoon, and under the eyes of his commanding officer and a group of ladies, conducting the highly

formal and complicated ceremony of changing the guard, tied a lot of grinning men up in a knot which

"I'm no earthly good," he ccmfided to Jackson that night, sitting on the steps of his barracks. "I know it like

abc, and then I get up and try it and all at once I'm just a plain damned fool."

"Don't give up like that, son," Jackson said. I've seen 'em march a platoon right into the C.O's porch before

Clayton wrote him daily, and now and then there came a letter from Natalie, cheerful on the surface, but its

cheerfulness obviously forced. And once, to his great surprise, Marion Hayden wrote him.

"I just want you to know," she said, "that I am still interested in you, even if it isn't going to be anything else.

And that I am ridiculously proud of you. Isn't it queer to look back on last Winter and think what a lot of

careless idiots we were? I suppose war doesn't really change us, but it does make us wonder what we've got

in us. I am surprised to find that I am a great deal better than I ever thought I was!"

There was comfort in the letter, but no thrill. He was far away from all that now, like one on the first stage of

Then one day he saw a familiar but yet strange figure striding along the country road. Graham was

mapsketching that day, and the strange but familiar figure was almost on him when he looked up. It was

extremely military, and looked like a general at least. Also it was very red in the face, and was clutching

doggedly in its teeth an old briar pipe. But what had appeared from the front to be an ultra military figure on

closer inspection turned out to be a procession. Pulling back hard on a rope behind was the company goat,

The ultramilitary figure paused by Graham's sketchingstool, and said, "Young man, do you know where

this creature belongs? I found her trying to commit suicide on the rifle range why, Graham!"

It was Doctor Haverford. He grew a trifle less military then, and borrowed some pipe tobacco. He looked

oddly younger, Graham thought, and rather selfconscious of his uniform. "Every inch a soldier, Graham,"

he chuckled. "Still have to use a hook and eye at the bottom of the coat blouse," he corrected himself. "But

I'm getting my waistline again. How's the whoa!" he called, as Elinor wrapped the rope around his

carefully putteed legs. "Infernal animal!" he grumbled. "I just paid a quarter to have these puttees shined.

"Mother has gone to Linndale. The house is finished. Have you been here long, sir?"

"Two weeks. Hang it all, Graham, I wish I'd let this creature commit suicide. She's do you know Delight is

"At the hostess house," said the chaplain, proudly. "Doing her bit, too. Mrs. Haverford wanted to come too,

and sew buttons on, or something. But I told her two out of three was a fair percentage. I hear that

"He's a big man, Graham. We're going to hear from him. Only I thought he looked tired when I saw him

last. Somebody ought to look after him a bit." He was patiently untangling himself from Elinor's rope. "You

know there are two kinds of people in the world: those who look after themselves and those who look after

Graham's face clouded. How true that was! He knew now, as he had not known before. He was thinking

clearly those days. Hard work and nothing to drink had clarified his mind, and he saw things at home as they

really were. Clayton's infinite patience, his strength and his gentleness. But he only said:

"He has had a hard year." He raised his eyes and looked at the chaplain. "I didn't help him any, you know,

"Well, well, that's all over now. We've just one thing to think of, and that's to beat those German devils back

The last Graham saw of him, he was dragging Elinor down the road, and a faint throafy humming came back,

which sounded suspiciously like "Where do we go from here, boys? Where do we go from here?"

Candidate Spencer took great pains with his toilet that afternoon. He polished his shoes, and shaved, and he

spent a half hour on some ten sadly neglected fingernails. At retreat he stood at attention in the long line,

and watched the flag moving slowly and majestically to the stirring bugle notes. Something swelled almost to

bursting in his throat. That was his flag. He was going to fight for it. And after that was done he was going tq

find some girl, some nice girl the sort, for instance, that would leave her home to work in a hostess house.

And having found her, he would marry her, and love and cherish her all his life. Unless, of course, she

He ate very little supper that night, little being a comparative term, of course. And then he went to discover

Delight. It appeared, however, that she had been already discovered. She was entirely surrounded by

"Pulling rank, of course!" he muttered, and retired to a corner, where he had at least the mild gratification of

"Silly asses!" said Graham, again, and then she saw him. There was no question about her being pleased. She

was quite flushed with it, but a little uncomfortable, too, at Graham's attitude. He was oddly humble, and yet

he had a look of determination that was almost grim. She filled in a rather disquieting silence by trying to let

him know, without revealing that she had ever been anything else, how proud she was of him. Then she

realized that he was not listening, and that he was looking at her with an almost painful intensity.

"From here?" She cast an appraising glance over the room. "Right away, I think. Why?"

She brought a bright colored sweater and he helped her into it, still with his mouth set and his eyes a trifle

sunken. All about there were laughing groups of men in uniform. Outside, the parade glowed faintly in the

dusk, and from the low barrack windows there came the glow of lights, the movement of young figures,

"How strange it all is," Delight said. "Here we are, you and father and myself and even Jackson. I saw him

today. All here, living different lives, doing different things, even thinking different thoughts. It's as though

He walked on beside her, absorbed in his own thoughts, which were yet only of her.

And again, struggling with his new humility, he was silent. It was not until they had crossed the parade

"Do you mind if I talk to you, Delight? I mean, about myself? I since you're here, we're likely to see each

He told her. He made no case for himself. Indeed, some of it Delight understood far better than he did

himself. He said nothing against Marion; on the contrary, he blamed himself rather severely. And behind his

honest, halting sentences, Delight read his own lack of understanding. She felt infinitely older than this tall,

honesteyed boy in his stained uniform older and more sophisticated. But if she had understood the Marion

"But I don't understand!" she cried. "How could you make love to her if you didn't love her?"

"I don't know. Fellows do those things. It's just mischief some sort of a devil in them, I suppose."

When he reached the beating and Anna's flight, however, she understood a little better.

"You haven't heard it all," he said quietly. "When I'm through, if you get up and leave me, I'll understand,

He told her the rest of the story in a voice strained with anxiety. It was as though he had come to a tribunal

for judgment. He spared her nothing, the dinner at the roadhouse with Rudolph at the window, his visit to

"She told the Department of Justice people that Rudolph found her that night, and, took her home. She was a

prisoner then, poor little kid. But she overheard her father and Rudolph plotting to blow up the mill. That's

where I came in, Delight. He was crazy at me. He was a German, of course, and he might have done it

anyhow. But Rudolph told him a lot of lies about me, and he did it. When I think about it all, and about

"Why should I?" she asked. "I only feel oh, Graham, how wretched you must have been."

Something in her voice made him sit up straighter. He knew now that it had always been Delight, always.

Only she had been too good for him. She had set a standard he had not hoped to reach. But now things were

different. He hadn't amounted to much in other things, but he was a soldier now. He meant to be a mighty

"Like fun you have!" But although he laughed, it was a shaky laugh. Suddenly he stood up and shook

himself. He felt young and strong and extremely happy. There had been a bad time, but it was behind him

now. Ahead there lay high adventure, and here, beside him in the dusk, was the girl of his heart. She believed

"Aren't you cold?" he asked, and drew the gaudy sweater tenderly around her shoulders.

The fact that Audrey Valentine, conspicuous member of a conspicuous social group that she was, had been

working in the machineshop of the Spencer munitions works at the time of the explosion was in itself

sufficient to rouse the greatest interest. When a young reporter, gathering humaninterest stories about the

event from the pitiful wreckage in the hospitals, happened on Clare Gould, he got a featurestory for the

Sunday edition that made Audrey's own world, reading it in bed or over its exquisite breakfasttables, gasp

For, following up Clare's story, he found that Audrey had done much more than run toward the telephone.

She had reached it, had found the operator gone, and had sueceeded, before the roof fell in on her, in calling

The reporter found the night operator who had received the message. He got a photograph of her, too, and,

from the society file, an old one of Audrey, very delicate and audacious, and not greatly resembling the

young woman who lay in her bed and read the article aloud, between dismay and laughter, to old Terry

"Good heavens, Terry," she said. "Listen! 'I had heard the explosion, but did not of course know what it was.

And then I got a signal, and it was the Spencer plant. A sweet Southern voice said, very calmly, "Operator,

this is important. Listen carefully. There has been an explosion at the Spencer plant and the ruins are on fire.

There will probably be more explosions in a minute. Send in a general firealarm, and then get all the

ambulances and doctors " Then there was another explosion, and their lines went out of commission. I am

"It's shameless!" But she was a little pleased, nevertheless. Not at the publicity. That was familiar enough.

Terry was striding about the room. His visits were always rather cyclonic. He moved from chair to chair,

leaving about each one an encircling ring of cigaret ashes, and carefully inspecting each new vase of flowers.

"Who sent this?" he demanded. "Rodney Page. Doesn't it look like him?" He turned and stared at her.

"About Rodney. He's head over heels in love with Natalie Spencer, God alone knows why."

"There's a good bit of talk. I don't give a hang for either of them, but I'm fond of Clayton. So are you.

Natalie's out in the country now, and Rodney is there every weekend. It's a scandal, that's all. As for Natalie

herself, she ought to be interned as a dangerous pacifist. She's a martyr, in her own eyes. Thank heaven there

"I wonder, Terry," she said, "if you haven't shown me what to do next. I might be able to reach some of the

women like Natalie. There are some of them, and they've got to learn that if they don't stand behind the men,

"Fine!" he agreed. "Get 'em to knit less and write more letters, cheerful letters. Tell 'em to remember that by

the time their man gets the letter the baby's tooth will be through. There are a good many men in the

armycamps today vicariously cutting teeth. Get after 'em, Audrey! A worried man is a poor soldier."

After he had gone, she had the nurse bring her paper and pencil, and she wrote, rather incoherently, it is true,

her first appeal to the women of the country. It was effective, too. Audrey was an effective person. When

Clayton came for his daily visit she had just finished it, and was reading it over with considerable

"I've become an author, Clay," she said, "I think myself I'm terribly good at it. May I read it to you?"

He listened gravely, but with a little flicker of amusement in his eyes. how like her it was, to refuse to allow

herself even time to get entirely well! But when she finished he was thoughtful. She had called it "Slacker

Women." That was what Natalie was; he had never put it into words before. Natalie was a slacker.

He had never discussed Natalie's attitude toward the war with Audrey. He rather thought she was entirely

ignorant of it. But her little article, glowing with patriotism, frank, simple, and convincing, might have been

"It is very fine," he said.. "I rather think you have found yourself at last. There aren't a lot of such women and

There was, in all their meetings, a subcurrent of sadness, that they must be so brief, that before long they

must end altogether, that they could not put into words the things that were in their eyes and their hearts.

After that first hour of her return to consciousness there had been no expressed tenderness between them. The

nurse sat in the room, eternally knitting, and Clayton sat near Audrey, or read to her, or, like Terry, wandered

about the room. But now and then Audrey, enthroned, like a princess on her pillows, would find his eyes on

her, and such a hungry look in them that she would clench her hands. And after such times she always said:

"Now, tell me about the mill." Or about Washington, wherehe was being summoned with increasing

frequency. Or about Graham. Anything to take that look out of his eyes. He told her all his plans; he even

brought the blueprints of the new plant and spread them out on the bed. He was dreaming a great dream

those days, and Audrey knew it. He was building again, this time not for himself, but for the nation.

After he had gone, looking boyish and reluctant, she would lie for a little while watching the door. Perhaps he

had forgotten something, and would come back! One day he did, and was surprised to find her suddenly in

That was the only time in all those weeks that he kissed her. The nurse had gone out, and suddenly he caught

her in his arms and held her to him. He put her back very gently, and she saw that he was pale.

And for two long and endless days he did not come. Then on the third he came, very stiff and formal, and

with himself well in hand. Audrey, leaning back and watching him, felt what a boy he was after all, so

determined to do the right thing, so obvious with his blueprints, and so selfconscious.

In June she left the hospital and went to the country. She had already made a little market for her work, and

she wanted to carry it on. By that time, too, she knew that the break must come between Clayton and herself

"No letters, no anything, Clay," she said, and he acquiesced quietly. But the night she left, the butler, coming

downstairs to investigate a suspicious sound, found him restlessly pacing the library floor.

In August he went abroad, and some time about the middle of the month while he was in London, he received

a cable from Graham. He had been commissioned a first lieutenant in the infantry. Clayton had been seeing

war at first hand then, and for a few moments he was fairly terrified. On that first of August the Germans had

used liquid fire for the first time, thus adding a new horror. Men in the trenches swept by it had been

practically annihilated. Attacks against it were practically suicide. Already the year had seen the last of

Kitchener's army practically destroyed, and the British combing the country for new divisions.

In the deadly give and take of that summer, where gains and losses were measured by yards, the advantage

was steadily on the German side, and it would be a year before the small force of American regulars could be

He resorted to his old remedy when he was in trouble. He walked the streets. He tried to allow for Natalie's

lack of exaltation by the nature of her life. If she could have seen what he had seen, surely she would have

felt, as he did, that no sacrifice could be too great to end this cancer of the world. But deep in his heart he

As it happened, he passed Graham on the Atlantic. There was a letter for him at the office, a boyish, exultant

"Dad dear, I'm married!" it began. "Married and off for France. It is Delight, of course. It always was Delight,

altho I know that sounds queer. And now I'm off to kill a Hun or two. More than that, I hope. I want two

Germans for every poor devil they got at the works. That's the minimum. The maximum !

"You'll look after Delight, I know. She has been perfectly bully, but it's hard on her. We were married two

days ago, and already I feel as though I've always been married. She's going on with the canteen work, and I

shall try not to be jealous. She's popular! And if you'd seen the General when we were married you'd have

"I wired Mother, but she was too cut up about my leaving to come. I wish she had, for it was a strange sort of

wedding. The division was about to move, and at the last minute five girls turned up to be married to fellows

who were leaving. They came from all over, and believe me there was some excitement. All day the General

and Chaplain Haverford were fussing about licenses, and those girls sat around and waited, and looked

"It was nine o'clock in the evening before everything was ready. Delight had trimmed up the little church

which is in the camp and had a flag over the altar. Then we had a multiple wedding. Honestly! The organ

played a squeaky wedding march, and we went in, six couples. The church was full of soldiers, and I don't

"We lined up, and Doctor Haverford married us. Delight says she is sure we are only onesixth married.

Quiet! You never heard such quiet except for the General blowing his nose. I think myself he was weeping,

and there was a rumor about the camp to that effect. You know the flag over the altar, and all that. I tell you

"Well, I'm going over now. Quick work, isn't it? And to think that a few months ago I was hanging around

the club and generally making a mess of life. That's all over now, thank God. I'm going to make good. Try to

buck mother up. It's pretty hard for her. It's hard for all women, just waiting. And while I know I'm coming

back, safe and sound, I'd like to feel that you are going to keep an eye on Delight. She's the most important

"You've been mighty fine with me always, dad. I was a good bit of a pup last winter. If I make anything of

Clayton sat for a long time with the letter in his hand. The happiness and hope that fairly radiated from it

cheered and warmed him. He was nearly happy. And it came to him then that, while every man had the right

to happiness, only those achieved it who craved it for others, and having craved it for them, at last saw the

Natalie had had a dull Spring. With Graham's departure for camp she moved to the country house, carrying

with her vast amounts of luggage, the innumerable thing, large and small, which were necessary for her

comfort. The installing of herself in her new and luxurious rooms gave her occupation for several days. She

liked her new environment. She liked herself in it. The rosecolored taffetas of her bedroom brought out the

delicacy of her skin. The hangings of her bed, small and draped, reflected a faint color into her face, and the

morning inspection with a handmirror, which always followed her coffee, showed her at her best instead of

Of her dressingroom she was not so sure. It's ivorypaneled walls, behind whose sliding panels were hung

her gowns, her silk and satin chiffon negligees, her wraps and summer furs all the vast paraphernalia with

which she armed herself, as a knight with armor the walls seemed cold. She hated oldblue, but oldblue

And, standing in her blue room, the first day of her arrival, and frowning at her reflection, she remembered

"Because I have no right, with you, to be anything else." He had stopped for a moment, and had absently

folded and refolded the bit of blue silk. Suddenly he said, "What do you think I am going to do, now that our

"I'm not coming. I've been seeing too much of you as it is. If you want the truth, I'm just wretchedly unhappy,

"Don't laugh." He almost snarled. "I may laugh at my idiocy, but you haven't any right to. I know I'm

He had meant it. There could be no doubt of that. It is the curious quality of very selfish women that they

inspire a certain sort of love. They are likely to be loved often, even tho the devotion they inspire is neither

deep nor lasting. Big and singlehearted women are loved by one man, and that forever.

Natalie had not laughed, but she had done what was almost as bad. She had patted him on the arm.

"Don't talk like that," she said, gently. "You are all I have now, Rodney, and I don't want to lose you. I'm

"As for loving me, you must not talk like that. Under the circumstances, it's indelicate."

"Oh!" he had said, and looked at her quickly. "I can love you, but it's indelicate to tell you about it!"

There was a real change in their relationship, but neither of them understood it. The change was that Rodney

was no longer playing. Little by little he had dropped his artistic posing for her benefit, his cynical cleverness,

his adroit simulation of passion. He no longer dramatized himself, because rather often he forgot himself

entirely. His passion had ceased to be spurious, and it was none the less real because he loved not a real

He saw in Natalie a misunderstood and suffering woman, bearing the burdens he knew of with dignity and a

certain beauty. And behind her slightly theatrical silences he guessed at other griefs, nobly borne and only

gently intimated. He developed, after a time, a certain suspicion of Clayton, not of his conduct but of his

character. These big men were often hard. It was that quality which made them successful. They married

Natalie became, in his mind, a crushed and broken thing, infinitely onely and pathetic. And, without in the

least understanding, Natalie instinctively knew it was when she was wistful and dependent that he found her

most attractive, and became wistful and dependent to a point that imposed even on herself.

"I've been very selfish with you, Rodney, dear," she said, lifting sad eyes to his. "I am going to be better. You

must come often this summer, and I'll have some nice girls for you to play with."

"We'll have to be as gay as we can," she sighed. "I'm just a little dreary these days, you know."

It was rather absurd that they were in a shop, and that the clerk should return just then with curtain cords, and

that the discussion of certain shades of yellow made an anticlimax to it all. But in the car, later, he turned to

"You needn't ask any girls for me," he said. "I only want one woman, and if I can't have her I don't want any

At first the very fact that he could not have her had been, unconsciously, the secret of her attraction. She was

a perfect thing, and unattainable. He could sigh for her with longing and perfect safety. But as time went on,

with that incapacity of any human emotion to stand still, but either to go on or to go back, his passion took on

a more human and less poetic aspect. She satisfied him less, and he wanted more.

For one thing, he dreamed that strange dream of mankind, of making ice burn, of turning snow to fire. The

old chimera of turning the cold woman to warmth through his own passion began to obsess him. Sometimes

he watched Natalie, and had strange fancies. He saw her lit from within by a fire, which was not the reflection

of his, but was recklessly her own. How wonderful she would be, he thought. And at those times he had wild

visions of going away with her into some beautiful wilderness and there teaching her what she had missed in

But altho now he always wanted her, he was not always thinking of a wilderness. It was in his own world that

he wanted her, to fit beautifully into his house, to move, exquisitely dressed, through ballrooms beside him.

He wanted her, at those times, as the most perfect of all his treasures. He was still a collector!

The summer only served to increase his passion. During the long hot days, when Clayton was abroad or in

Washington, or working late at night, as he frequently did how, they were much together. Natalie's plans for

gayety had failed dismally. The city and the country houses near were entirely lacking in men. She found it a

"I dcn't know what we are coming to," she complained. "The country club is like a girl's boardingschool. I

So, during his weekend visits, they spent most of the time together. There were always girls there, and now

and then a few men, who always explained immediately that they had been turned down for the service, or

"I'm sure somebody has to stay home and attend to things here," she said to him one August night. "But even

when they are in America, they are rushing about, pretending to do things. One would think to see Clayton

"Well, I will, and it's not very agreeable. I can't keep this up, Natalie. I can't keep on coming here, being in

Clayton's house, and eating his bread, while I'm in love with his wife. It isn't decent."

"Don't you see that?" he asked gently. "Not while he is working for the country, and Graham is abroad."

"I don't see why war needs to deprive me of my friends. I've lost everything else."

His morals were matters of his private life, and they had been neither better nor worse than the average. But

he had breeding and a sure sense of the fitness of things, and this present weekend visit, with the

ostentatious care the younger crowd took to allow him time to see Natalie alone, was galling to him. It put

him in a false position; what hurt more, perhaps, in an unfavorable light. The war had changed standards, too.

Men were being measured, especially by women, and those who failed to measure up were being eliminated

With all this, too, there was a growing admiration for Clayton Spencer in their small circle. His name had

been mentioned in connection with an important position in Washington. In the clubs there was considerable

praise and some envy. And Rodney knew that his affair with Natalie was the subject of much invidious

"Oh friendship! You know how I feel, and yet you go on, bringing up that silly word. If you love him, you

don't love me, and yet you've let me hang around all these months, knowing I am mad about you. You don't

"If you don't love Clayton, why don't you tell him so? He's honest enough. And I miss my guess if he wants a

She sat in the dusk, thinking, and he watched her. She looked very lovely in the setting which he himself had

designed for her. She hated change; she loathed trouble, of any sort. And she was, those days, just a little

afraid of that strange, quiet Clayton who seemed eternally engrossed in war and the things of war. She

glanced about, at the white trellises that gleamed in the garden, at the silvery fleur de lis which was the

fountain, at all the lovely things with which Clayton's wealth had allowed her to surround herself. And

"I don't see why you have to spoil everything," she said fretfully. "It had been so perfect. Of course I'm not

going to say anything to Clay. He has enough to worry him now," she added, virtuously.

Alone in his room upstairs Rodney had, in his anger, a glimpse of insight. He saw her, her life filled with

small emotions, lacking the courage for big ones. He saw her, like a child, clutching one piece of cake and

On the way to the station he reflected bitterly over the past year. He did not blame her so much as he blamed

himself. He had been playing a game, an attractive game. During the first months of it his interest in Natalie

had been subordinate to his interest in her house. He had been creating a beautiful thing, and he had had a

very real joy in it. But lately he knew that his work on the house had been that he might build a background

for Natalie. He had put into it the best of his ability, and she was not worth it.

For some days he neither wrote nor called her up. He was not happy, but he had a sense of relief. He held his

head a trifle higher, was his own man again, and he began to make tentative inquiries as to whether he could

be useful in the national emergency or not. He was halfhearted at first, but he found out something. The

mere fact that he wanted to work in some capacity brought back some of his old friends. They had seemed to

"Work?" said Terry Mackenzie, at the club one day, looking up from the billiard table, where he was

knocking balls about, rather at haphazard. "Why, of course you can work. What about these new cantonments

we're building all over the country? You ought to be useful there. They don't want 'em pretty, tho." And Terry

"Let's ask Nolan about it," he said. "He's in the readingroom, tearing the British strategy to pieces. He

knows everything these days, from the draft law to the month's shipping losses. Come along."

It was from Nolan, however, that Rodney first realized how seriously Clayton's friends were taking his affair

with Natalie, and that not at first from anything he said. It was an indefinable aloofness of manner, a hostility

of tone. Nolan never troubled himself to be agreeable unless it suited his inclination, and apparently Terry

"Something he could build?" said Nolan, repeating Terry's question. "How do I know? There's a lot of

building going on, Page, but it's not exactly your sort." And there was a faint note of contempt in his voice.

Old Terry, having got them together, went back to his bil1iards and left them. Nolan sat down and picked up

his paper, with an air of ending the interview. But he put it down again as Rodney turned to leave the room.

But Nolan was slow to begin. He sat, newspaper on his knee, his deepset eyes thoughtful. When he began it

"I am one of Clay Spencer's oldest friends," he said. "He's a white man, the whitest man I know. Naturally,

"The name stands for a good bit, too. His father and his grandfather were the same sort. It's not often in this

"I don't know. I don't want to know. I simply wanted to tell you that there are a good many of us who take a

peculiar pride in Clayton Spencer, and who resent anything that reflects on a name we respect rather highly."

"Not at all. I was merely calling your attention to something I thought perhaps you had forgotten." Then he

got up' and his tone changed, became brisk, almost friendly. "Now, about this building thing. If you're in

earnest I think it can be managed. You won't get any money to speak of, you know."

"Fine. You'll probably have to go west somewhere, and you'll be set down in the center of a hundred

cornfields and told to make them overnight into a temporary town. I suppose you've thought of all that?"

Rodney hesitated. He felt cheap and despicable, and his anger was still hot. They wanted to get him out of

town. He saw that. They took little enough trouble to hide it. Well, he would go. He wanted to go anyhow,

and he would show them something, too, if he got a chance. He would show them that he was as much a man

as Clayton Spencer. He eyed Nolan's insolently slouching figure with furious eyes. But he followed him.

Had he secured an immediate appointment things might have been different for him. Like Chris Valentine, he

had had one decent impulse, and like Chris too, there was a woman behind it. But Chris had been able to act

on his impulse at once, and Rodney was compelled to wait while the mills of the government ground slowly.

He thought of Graham ill, possibly dead, and he took the next train, late in the evening. It was midweek and

Natalie was alone. He had thought of that possibility in the train and he was miserably uncomfortable, with

all his joy at the prospect of seeing her again. He felt that the emergency must be his justification. Clayton

was still abroad, and even his most captious critics would admit that Natalie should have a friend by if she

were in trouble. Visions of Graham wounded filled his mind. He was anxious, restless and in a state of the

He found Natalie in the drawingroom, pacing the floor. She was still in her morning dress, and her eyes

were red and swollen. She gave him both her hands, and he was surprised to find them cold as ice.

"But what did you expect? He would have to go abroad some time. You knew that. I'm sorry, but why in

She was entirely incapable of understanding. She stood before him, straight and resentful, and yet strangely

"I send you word that my only son is going to France, that he has married without so much as consulting me,

that he is going to war and may never come back. I needed you, and you said once that when I needed you,

wherever you were, you would come. So I sent for you, and now you act like like Clay."

"We resent anything that reflects on a name we respect rather highly." That was what Nolan had said.

"I'm sorry about Graham, dearest. I am sorry about any trouble that comes to you. You know that, Natalie.

I'm only regretful that you have let me place you in an uncomfortable position. If my being here is known

Look here, Natalie, dear, I hate to bother you, but I'll have to take one of the cars and go back to the city

He hesitated. He could not tell her of that awkward talk with Nolan. There were many things he would not

tell her; his own desire to rehabilitate himself among the men he knew, his own newborn feeling that to take

advantage of Clayton's absence on business connected with the war was peculiarly indefensible.

"I shall order the car at once," she said, and touched a bell. When she turned he was just behind her, but altho

"I do, very thoroughly. Too thoroughly. You are afraid for yourself, not for me. I am in trouble, but that is a

secondary consideration. Don't bother about me, Rodney. I have borne a great deal alone in my life, and I can

"Natalie!" he called. But he heard her with a gentle rustle of silks going up the staircase. It did not add to his

All through the night Rodney rode and thought. He was angry at Natalie, but he was angrier at himself. He

felt that he had been brutal, unnecessarily callous. After all, her only son was on his way to war. It was on the

cards that he might not come back. And he had let his uneasiness dominate his sympathy. He had lost her, but

Half way to town, on a back road, the car broke down, and after vainly endeavoring to start it the chauffeur

set off on foot to secure help. Rodney slept, uncomfortably, and wakned with the movement of the machine

to find it broad day. That was awkward, for Natalie's car was conspicuous, marked too with her initials. He

asked to be set down at a suburban railway station, and was dismayed to find it crowded with early

commuters, who stared at the big car with interest. On the platform, eyeing him with unfriendly eyes, was

Nolan. Rodney made a movement toward him. The situation was intolerable, absurd. But Nolan turned his

Perhaps not in years had Rodney Page faced the truth about himself so clearly as he did that morning, riding

into the city on the train which carried, somewhere ahead, that quietly contemptuous figure that was Denis

Nolan. Faced the truth, saw himself for what he was, and loathed the thing he saw. For a little time, too, it

was given him to see Natalie for what she was, for what she would always be, her sole contribution to life the

web of her selfishness, carefully woven, floating apparently aimlessly, and yet snaring and holding

relentlessly whatever it touched. Killing freedom. He saw Clayton and Graham and himself, feeders for her

monstrous complacency and vanity, and he made a definite determination to free himself.

He hesitated. How lovely she was! And she cared for him. She was small and selfish and unspeakably vain,

The war had done something for Rodney Page. He no longer dreamed the old dream, of turning her ice to

fire. But he dreamed, for a moment, something finer. He saw Natalie his, and growing big and fine through

love. He saw himself and Natalie, like cards in the game of life, redealt. A new combination; a winning

Very quietly Audrey had taken herself out of Clayton's life. She sent him a little note of farewell:

"We have had ten very wonderful months, Clay," she wrote. "We ought to be very happy. So few have as

much. And we both know that this can't go on. I am going abroad. I have an opportunity to go over and see

what Englishwomen are doing in the way of standing behind their men at war. Then I am to tell our women at

"I believe you will be glad to know that I am to be on the same side of the ocean with Graham. I could get to

him, I think, if anything should go wrong. Will you send him the enclosed address?

"But, my dear, the address is for him, not for you. You must not write to me. I have used up every particle of

moral courage I possess, as it is. And I am holding this in my mind, as you must. Time is a great healer of all

wounds. We could have been happy together; oh, my dear, so very happy together! Now that I am going, let

me be frank for once. I have given you the finest thing I am capable of. I am better for caring for you as I

"But those days in the hospital told me we couldn't go on. Things like that don't stand still. Maybe we are

only human, Clay maybe if the old days were still here we might have compromised with life. I don't know.

"After all, we have had a great deal, and we still have. It is a wonderful thing to know that somewhere in the

world is some one person who loves you. To waken up in the morning to it. To go to sleep remembering it.

"I am not always on a pinnacle. There have been plenty of times when the mere human want of you has sent

me to the dust. Is it wrong to tell you that? But of course not. You know it. But you and I know this; Clay,

dear. Love that is hopeless, that can not end in marriage, does one of two things. Either it degrades or it

Clayton lived, for a time after that, in a world very empty and very full. The new plant was well under way.

Not only was he about to make shells for the government at a nominal profit, but Washington was asking him

to assume new and wide responsibilities. He accepted. He wanted so to fill the hours that there would be no

time to remember. But, more than that, he was actuated by a fine and glowing desire to serve. Perhaps,

underlying it all was the determination to be, in every way, the man Audrey thought him to be. And there

was, too, a squarejawed resolution to put behind Graham, and other boys like Graham, all the shells and

He worked hard; more than hard. Old Terry, meeting him one day in the winter that followed, was shocked at

"Better take a little time off, Clay," he suggested. "We're going to Miami next week. How about ten days or

"Looks like the devil," he said. "He'll go down sick one of these days. I suppose it's no use telling Natalie."

"None whatever," said Mrs. Terry. "And, anyhow, it's a thing I shouldn't care to tell Natalie."

"That's only part of it," said Mrs. Terry, sagely, and relapsed into one of the poignant silences that drove old

Then, in January of 1918, a crisis came to Clayton and Natalie Spencer. Graham was wounded.

Clayton was at home when the news came. Natalie had been having one of her illassorted, meticulously

elaborate dinnerparties, and when the guests had gone they were for a moment alone in the drawingroom

of their town house. Clayton was fighting in himself the sense of irritation Natalie's dinners always left,

especially the recent ones. She was servng, he knew, too much food. In the midst of the agitation on

conservation, her dinners ran their customary seven courses. There was too much wine, too. But it occurred to

Then he tried to force himself into better humor. Natalie was as she was, and if, in an unhappy, struggling,

dying world she found happiness in display, God knew there was little enough happiness. He was not at home

very often. He could not spoil her almost childish content in the small things that made up her life.

"I think it was very successful," she said, surveying herself in one of the corner mirrors. "Do you like my

"It's new. I've been getting some clothes, Clay. You'll probably shriek at the bills. But all this talk about not

buying clothes is nonsense, you know. The girls who work in the shops have to live."

He winced. The thought of that night the year before, when the plant went, still turned him sick.

"Don't buy too many things, my dear," he said, gently. "You know how things are."

"I know it's your fault that they are as they are," she persisted. "Oh, I know it was noble of you, and all that.

The country's crazy about you. But still I think it was silly. Every one else is making money out of things, and

Then the doorbell rang in the back of the house, and Buckham answered it. He was conscious at once that

Natalie stiffened, and that she was watchful and a trifle pale. Buckham brought in a telegram on a tray.

"Give it to me, Buckham," Natalie said, in a strained voice. And held out her hand for it. When she saw it was

for Clayton, however, she relaxed. As he tore it open, Clayton was thinking. Evidently Natalie had been

afraid of his seeing some message for her. Was it possible that Natalie He opened it. After what seemed a

"Don't be alarmed, my dear," he said. "It is not very bad. But Graham has been slightly wounded. Sit down,"

"He is not dead, Natalie." He tried to put her into a chair, but she resisted him fiercely.

And, very reluctantly, at last he gave it to her. Graham was severely wounded. It was from a man in his own

department at Washington who had just seen the official list. The nature of his wounding had not been stated.

"This is your doing," she said. "You wanted him to go. You sent him into this. He will die, and you will have

The thought came to him, in that hour of stress, that she was right. Pitifully, damnably right. He had not

wanted Graham to go, but he had wanted him to want to go. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind,

of Delight, sleeping somewhere quietly after her day's work at the camp; of Graham himself, of that morning

after the explosion, and his frank, pitiful confession. And again of Graham, suffering, perhaps dying, and

with none of his own about him. And through it all was the feeling that he must try to bring Natalie to reason,

"We must not think of his dying," he said. "We must only think that he is going to live, and to come back to

"And that," he went on, feeling for words out of the dreadful confusion in his mind, "if the worst comes,

"That won't bring him back to us," she said, still in that frozen voice. And suddenly she burst into hard,

All that night he sat outside her door, for she would not allow him to come in. He had had Washington on the

telephone, but when at last he got the connection it was to learn that no further details were known. Toward

dawn there came the official telegram from the War Department, but it told nothing more.

Natalie was hysterical. He had sent for a doctor, and with Madeleine in attendance the medical man had

worked over her for hours. Going out, toward morning, he had found Clayton in the hall and had looked at

"Better go to bed, Mr. Spencer," he advised. "It may not be as bad as you think. And they're doing fine

"Mrs. Spencer will come round all right. She's hysterical, naturally. She'll be sending for you before long."

With the dawn, Clayton's thoughts cleared. If he and Natalie were ever to get together at all, it should be now,

with this common grief between them. Perhaps, after all, it was not too late to rebuild his house of life. He

had failed. Perhaps they had both failed, but the real responsibility was his. Inside the room he could hear her

moaning, a low, monotonous, heartbreaking moan. He was terribly sorry for her. She had no exaltation to

help her, no strength of soul, no strength of any sort. And, as men will under stress, he tried to make a bargain

"Let him live," he prayed. "Bring him back to us, and I will try again. I'll do better. I've been a rotten failure,

He felt somewhat better after that, altho he felt a certain ignominy, too, that always, until such a time, he had

gone on his own, .as it were, and that now, when he no longer sufficed for himself, he should beseech the

Natalie had had a sleepingpowder, and at last he heard her moaning cease and the stealthy movements of

During the next two days Clayton worked as he never had worked before, still perhaps with that unspoken

pact in mind. Worked too, to forget. He had sent several cables, but no reply came until the third day. He did

not sleep at night. He did not even go to bed. He sat in the low chair in his dressingroom, dozing

occasionally, to waken with a start at some sound in the hall. Now and again, as the trained nurse who was

watching Natalie at night moved about the hallways, he would sit up, expecting a ummons that did not come.

She still refused to see him. It depressed and frightened him, for how could he fulfill his part of the compact

He was singularly simple in his fundamental beliefs. There was a Great Power somewhere, call it what one

might, and it dealt out justice or mercy as one deserved it. On that, of course, had been built an elaborate

edifice of creed and dogma, but curiously enough it all fell away now. He was, in those night hours, again the

boy who had prayed for fair weather for circus day and had promised in return to read his Bible through

In the daytime, however, he was a man, suffering terribly, and facing the complexities of his life alone. One

thing he knew. This was decisive. Either, under the stress of a common trouble, he and Natalie would come

together, to make the best they could of the years to come, or they would be hopelessly alienated.

But that was secondary to Graham. Everything was secondary to Graham, indeed. He had cabled Audrey, and

he drew a long breath when, on the third day, a cable came from her. She had located Graham at last. He had

Dunbar, now a captain in the Military Intelligence Bureau, visiting him in his office one day, found Clayton's

face an interesting study. Old lines of repression, new ones of anxiety, marked him deeply.

"The boy, of course," he thought. And then reflected that it takes time to carve such lines as were written in

the face of the man across the desk from him. Time and a woman, he considered shrewdly. His mind harked

back to that dinner in the Spencer house when diplomatic relations had been broken off with. Germany, and

war seemed imminent. It was the wife, probably. He remembered that she had been opposed to war, and to

the boy's going. There were such women in the country. There were fewer of them all the time, but they

existed, women who saw in war only sacrifice. Women who counted no cost too high for peace. If they only

Clayton was going through some papers he had brought, and Dunbar had time to consider what to him was an

interesting problem. Mrs. Spencer had kept the boy from immediate enlistment. He had wanted to go; Dunbar

knew that. If she had allowed him to go the affair with Anna Klein would have been ended. He knew all that

story now. Then, if there had been no affair, Herman would not have blown up the munition works and a

"Curious!" he reflected. "One woman! And she probably sleeps well at nights and goes to church on

"He's got away, unfortunately. Over the border into Mexico. They have a regular system there, the Germans

an underground railway to Mexico City. They have a paymaster on our side of the line. They even bank in

one of our banks! Oh, we'll get them yet, of course, but they're damnably clever."

"Not while the Germans are running Mexico," Captain Dunbar replied, dryly. "He's living in a Mexican town

just over the border. We're watching him. If he puts a foot on this side we'll grab him."

Clayton sat back after he had gone. He was in his old office at the mill, where Joey had once formed his

unofficial partnership with the firm. Outside in the mill yard there was greater activity than ever, but many of

the faces were new. The engineer who had once run the yard engine was building bridges in France.

Hutchinson had heard the call, and was learning to fly in Florida, The service flag over his office door

showed hundreds of stars, and more were being added constantly. Joey dead. Graham wounded, his family

Then, out of the chaos there came an exaltation. He had given himself, his son, the wealth he had hoped to

have, but, thank God, he had had something to give. There were men who could give nothing, like old Terry

Mackenzie, knocking billiardballs around at the club, and profanely wistful that he had had no son to go.

His mind ranged over those pathetic, prosperous, sonless men who filed into the club late in the afternoons,

and over the last editions and whiskyandsodas fought their futile warfare, their battleground a newspaper

On parade days, when the long lines of boys in khaki went by, they were silent, heavy, inutile. They were too

old to fight. The biggest thing in their lives was passing them by, as passed the lines of marching boys, and

they had no part in it. They were feeding their hungry spirits on the dregs of war, on committee meetings and

public gatherings, and they were being useful. But the great exaltation of offering their best was not for them.

He was living a tragedy, but a greater tragedy was that of the childless. And back of that again was the

woman who had not wanted children. There were many men today who were feeling the selfishness of a

woman at home, men who had lost, somehow, their pride, their feeling of being a part of great things. Men

who went home at night to comfortable dwellings, with no vacant chair at the table, and dined in a peace they

He took that thought home with him in the evening. He stopped at a florist's and bought a great box of

"Mrs. Spencer can not have them in the room, sir. She says the odor of flowers makes her ill."

He knew Madeleine had invented the excuse, that Natalie had simply rejected his offering. He went

It was there that Audrey's daily cable found him. Buckham brought it in in shaking fingers, and stood by,

Suddenly Buckham was crying. His austere face was distorted, his lean body trembling. Clayton put his arm

And in that moment, as they stood there, master and man, Clayton Spencer had a flash of revelation. There

was love and love. The love of a man for a woman, and of a woman for a man, of a mother for the child at her

knee, of that child for its mother. But that the great actuating motive of a man's maturity, of the middle span,

was vested along with his dreams, his pride and his love, in his son, his manchild.

Buckham, carrying his coffee into the library somewhat later, found him with his head down on his desk, and

Clayton's first impulse was to take the cable to Natalie, to brush aside the absurd defenses she had erected,

"He is living. He is going to live. But this war is not over yet. If we want him to come through, we must stand

But by the time he reached the top of the stairs he knew he could not do it. She would not understand. She

would think he was using Graham to further a reconciliation; and, after her first joy was over, he knew that he

would see again that cynical smile that always implied that he was dramatizing himself.

Nothing could dim his strong inner joy, but something of its outer glow faded. He would go to her, later. Not

After a time he began to go over the events of the past eighteen months. His return from the continent, and

that curious sense of unrest that had followed it, the opening of his eyes to the futility of his life. His failure to

Natalie and her failure to him. Graham, made a man by war and by the love of a good woman. Chris, ending

his sordid life in a blaze of glory, and forever forgiven his tawdry sins because of his one big hour.

War took, but it gave also. It had taken Joey, for instance, but Joey had had his great moment. It was better to

have one great moment and die than to drag on through useless years. And it was the same way with a nation.

A nation needed its hour. It was only in a crisis that it could know its own strength. How many of them, who

had been at that dinner of Natalie's months before, had met their crisis bravely! Nolan was in France now.

Doctor Haverford was at the front. Audrey was nursing Graham. Marion Hayden was in a hospital

trainingSchool. Rodney Page was still building wooden barracks in a cantonment in Indiana, and was

They could never go back, none of them, to the old smug, complacent, luxurious days. they could no more go

back than Joey could return to life again. War was the irrevocable step, as final as death itself. And he

"We have had one advantage, Clay. Or maybe it is not an advantage, after all. Do you realize that you and I

have lived through the Golden Age? We have seen it come and seen it go. The greatest height of civilization,

since the world began, the greatest achievements, the most opulent living. And we saw it all crash. It will be a

"I suppose every life has its Golden Age. Generally we think it is youth. I'm not so sure. Youth is looking

ahead. It has its hopes and its disappointments. The Golden Age in a mah's life ought to be the age of

"You are going to reach it," he said. "We are always going to find it, Nolan. It is always just ahead."

There could be no Golden Age for him. For the Golden Age for a man meant fulfillment. The time came to

every man when he must sit at the west window of his house of life and look toward the sunset. If he faced

He heard Madeleine carrying down Natalie's dinnertray, and when she left the pantry she came to the door

Suddenly he knew that he did not want to go up to Natalie's scented room. She had shut him out when she

was in trouble. She had not cared that he, too, was in distress. She had done her best to invalidate that

To go back to the old way, to the tribute she enforced to feed her inordinate vanity, to the old hypocricy of

He got up. He would not try to buy himself happiness at the cost of turning her adrift. But he must, some

He heard her then, on the staircase, that soft rustle which, it seemed to him, had rasped the silk of his nerves

all their years together with its insistence on her dainty helplessness, her femininity, her right to protection.

The tap of her high heels came closer. He drew a long breath and turned, determinedly smiling, to face the

Almost at once he saw that she was frightened. She had taken pains to look her best but then she always did

that. She was rouged to the eyes, and the floating white chiffon of her negligee gave to her slim body the

illusion of youth, that last illusion to which she so desperately clung. But she was frightened.

She stood in the doorway, one hand holding aside the heavy velvet curtain, and looked at him with wide,

"We mustn't worry about what may come. He is better now. The chances are that he'll stay better."

He felt the demand for sympathy, but he had none to give. And he felt something else. Natalie was

floundering, an odd word for her, always so sure of herself. She was frightened, unsure of herself, and

She gave a curious little gesture. Then she evidently made up her mind and she faced him defiantly.

"Of course, if I had known he was going to be better, I'd Clay, I wired yesterday for Rodney Page. He

"You wouldn't understand, of course. I was in trouble. He has been my best friend. I tried to bear it alone, but

The sheer cruelty of it sent him pale. Yet it was not so much deliberate as unconscious. She was forcing

herself to an unwonted honesty. It was her honest conviction that he was responsible for Graham's wounding

"Let me get to the bottom of this," he said quietly. "You hold me responsible. Very well. How far does that

"Isn't it time you do know? For God's sake, Natalie, make up your mind to some course and stick to it."

But accustomed as he was to the curious turns of her mind, he was still astounded to have her turn on him and

accuse him of trying to get rid of her. It was not until later that he realized in that attitude of hers her old

The unreality of the situation persisted. Rodney's strained face and uneasy manner, his uniform, the blank

pause when he had learned that Graham was better, and when the ordinary banalities of greeting were over.

Beside Clayton he looked small, dapper, and wretchedly uncomfortable, and yet even Clayton had to

He felt sorry for him, for the disillusion that was to come. And at the same time he felt an angry contempt for

him, that he should have forced so theatrical a situation. That the night which saw Graham's beginning

recovery should be tarnished by the wild clutch after happiness of two people who had done so little to earn

He saw another, totally different scene, for a moment. He saw Graham in his narrow bed that night in some

dimlylighted hospital ward, and he saw Audrey beside him, watching and waiting and praying. A wild

desire to be over there, one of that little group, almost overcame him. And instead

"Natalie has not been well, Rodney," he said. "I rather think, if you have anything to say to me, we would

Natalie went out, her draperies trailing behind her. Clayton listened, as she moved slowly up the stairs. For

the last time he heard that soft rustling which had been the accompaniment to so many of the most poignant

For months Rudolph Klein had been living in a little Mexican town on the border. There were really two

towns, but they were built together with only a strip of a hundred feet between. Along this strip ran the border

itself, with a tent pitched on the American side, and patrols of soldiers guarding it. The American side was

bright and clean, orderly and selfrespecting, but only a hundred feet away, unkempt, dusty, with adobe

buildings and a notorious gamblinghell in plain view, was Mexico itself leisurely, improvident, not

At first Rudolph was fairly contented. It amused him. He liked the idleness of it. He liked kicking the

innumerable Mexican dogs out of his way. He liked baiting the croupiers in the "Owl." He liked wandering

into that notorious resort and shoving Hindus, Chinamen, and Mexicans out of the way, while he flung down

He liked his own situation, too. It amused him to think that here he was safe, while only a hundred feet away

he was a criminal, fugitive from the law. He liked to go to the very border itself, and jeer at the men on guard

"If I was on that side," he would say, "you'd have me in one of those rotten uniforms, wouldn't you? Come on

Then, one day, a Chinaman he had insulted gave him an unexpected shove, and he had managed to save

himself by a foot from the clutch of a quietfaced man in plain clothes who spent a certain amount of time

That had sobered him. He kept away from the border itself after that, although the temptation of it drew him.

After a few weeks, when the novelty had worn off, he began to hunger for the clean little American town

across the line. He wanted to talk to some one. He wanted to boast, to be candid. These Mexicans only

There was a highfenced enclosure behind the "Owl," the segregated district of the town. There, in tiny

oneroomed houses built in rows like barracks were the girls and women who had drifted to this jumpingoff

place of the world. In the daytime they slept or sat on the narrow, ramshackle porches, untidy, noisy,

unspeakably wretched. At night, however, they blossomed forth in tawdry finery, in the dancingspace

behind the gamblingtables. Some of them were fixtures. They had drifted there from New Orleans, perhaps,

or southern California, and they lacked the initiative or the money to get away. But most of them came in,

stayed a month or two, found the place a nightmare, with its shootings and stabbings, and then disappeared.

At first Rudolph was popular in this hell of the underworld. He spent money easily, he danced well, he had

audacity and a sort of sardonic humor. They asked no questions, those poor wretches who ad themselves slid

over the edge of life. They took what came, grateful for little pleasures, glad even to talk their own tongue.

And then, one broiling August day, late in the afternoon, when the compound was usually seething with the

first fetid life of the day, Rudolph found it suddenly silent when he entered it, and hostile, contemptuous eyes

There was a ripple of laughter around the compound. They commenced to bait him, those women he would

not have wiped his feet on at home. They literally laughed him out of the compound.

He went home to his stifling, windowless adobe room, with its sagging narrow bed, its candle, its broken

crockery, and he stood in the center of the room and chewed his nails with fury. After a time he sat down and

considered what to do next. He would have to move on some time. As well now as ever. He was sick of the

He began preparations to move on, gathering up the accumulation of months of careless living for

destruction. He picked up some newspapers preparatory to throwing them away, and a name caught his

attention. Standing there, inside his doorway in the Mexican dusk, he read of Graham's recent wounding, his

mending, and the fact that he had won the Croix de Guerre. Supreme bitterness was Rudolph's then.

"Stage stuff!" he muttered. But in the depths of his warped soul there was bitter envy. He knew well with

what frightened yet adoring eyes Anna Klein had devoured that news of Graham Spencer. While for him

there was the girl in the compound back of the "Owl," with Anna Klein's eyes, filled when she looked at him

That night he went to the Owl. He had shaved and had his hair cut and he wore his only remaining decent suit

of clothes. He passed through the swinging gate in the railing which separated the dancingfloor from the

tables and went up to the line of girls, sitting in that saddest waiting of all the world, along the wall. There

was an ominous silence at his approach. He planted himself in front of the girl with eyes like Anna Klein.

"If you think I'm here because I'm afraid to fight you can think again. Not that I care what you think."

He had meant to boast a little, to intimate that he had pulled off a big thing, but he saw that he was ridiculous.

The situation infuriated him. Suddenly he burst into foulmouthed invective, until one of the girls said,

And he knew that no single word he had used against them, out of a vocabulary both extensive and horrible,

Late that night he received a tip from a dealer at one of vingtetun tables. There were inquiries being made

for him across the border. That very evening he, the dealer, had gone across for a sack of flour, and he had

"Don't be too sure, son. You're not any too popular here. There's such a thing as being held up and carried

"I'm sick of this hole, anyhow," Rudolph muttered, and moved away in the crowd. The mechanical piano was

banging in the dancehall as he slipped out into the darkness, under the clear starlight of the Mexican night,

Long before, he had provided for such a contingency. By the same agency which had got him to the border,

he could now be sent further on. At something after midnight, clad in old clothes and carrying on his back a

rough outfit of a blanket and his remaining wardrobe, he knocked at the door of a small adobe house on the

Rudolph was sullenly silent. He was in this man's power, and he knew it. But the German was ready enough

to do his part. For months he had been doing this very thing, starting through the desert toward the south

slackers and fugitives of all descriptions. He gathered together the equipment, a map with waterholes

marked, a canteen covered with a dirty plaidcloth casing, a small supply of condensed foods, in tins mostly,

and a letter to certain Germans in Mexico City who would receive hospitably any American fugitives and ask

"You will not need money in the desert," he said. "And you haf spent much money here, on the women. You

"You viii find money in Mexico City, if you get there," he said, cryptically. And Rudolph found neither

He started out of the town, turning toward the south and west. Before him there stretched days of lonely

traveling through the sand and cactus of the desert, of blistering sun and cold nights, of anxious searches for

waterholes. It was because of the waterholes that he headed southwest, for such as they were they lay in

tiny hidden oases in the canyons. Almost as soon as he left the town he was in the desert; a detached ranch, a

suggestion of a road, a fencedin cottonfield or two, an irigation ditch, and then sand.

He was soft from months of inaction, from the cactus whisky of Mexico, too, that ate into a man like a

corrosive acid. But he went on steadily, putting behind him as rapidly as possible the border, and the girls

who had laughed at him. He traveled by a pointed mountain which cut off the stars at the horizon, and as the

miles behind him increased, in spite of his growing fatigue his spirits rose. Before him lay the fulness of life

again. Mexico City was a stake worth gambling for. He was gambling, he knew. He had put up his life, and

his opponent was thirst. He knew that, well enough, too, and the figure rather amused him.

"Playing against that, all right," he muttered. He paused and turned around. The sun had lifted over the rim of

the desert, a red disc which turned the gleaming white alkali patches to rose. "By God," he said, "that's the

A caravan of mules was coming up from the head of the Gulf of California. It moved in a cloud of alkali dust

and sand, its oresacks coated white. The animals straggled along, wandering out of the line incessantly and

thrust back into place by muleteers who cracked long whips and addressed them vilely.

At a place where a small rock placed on another marked a side trail to water, the caravan turned and moved

toward the mountains. Close as they appeared, the outfit was three hours getting to the foot hills. There was a

low meadow now, covered with pale green grass. Quail scurried away under the mesquite bushes, stealthily

With the instinct of desert creatures the mules hurried their pace. Packsaddles creaked, spurs jingled. Life,

A man rode ahead. He dug his spurs into his horse and cantered, elbows flapping, broadbrimmed hat drawn

over his eyes. For hours he had been fighting the demon of thirst. His tongue was dry, his lips cracking. The

trail continued to be marked with its double stones, but it did not enter the cool canyon ahead. It turned and

skirted the base of the bare mountain slope. The man's eyes sharpened. He knew very definitely what he was

looking for, and at last he saw it, a circle of flat stones, some twenty feet across, the desert sign for a buried

But there was something inside the circle, something which lay still. The man put his horse to the gallop

again. There was a canteen lying in the trail, a canteen covered with a dirty plaid casing. The horse's hoof

Then he dragged the quiet figure outside the ring of stones, and getting a spade from his saddle, fell to

digging in the center. A foot below the surface water began to appear, clear, cold water. He lay down, flat and

Clayton Spencer was alone in his house. In the months since Natalie had gone, he had not been there a great

deal. He had been working very hard. He had not been able to shoulder arms, but he had, nevertheless, fought

He was very tired. During the day, a sort of fierce energy upheld him. Because in certain things he had failed

he was the more determined to succeed in others. Not for himself; ambition of that sort had died of the higher

desire to serve his country. But because the sense of failure in his private life haunted him.

The house was very quiet. Buckham came in to mend the fire, issuing from the shadows like a lean old ghost

"I have not spoken about it, but I think you have understood. Mrs. Spencer is not coming back."

"I had meant to close the house, but certain things Captain Spencer's wife expects a child. I would rather

like to have her come here, for the birth. After that, if the war is over, I shall turn the house over to them. You

"I'll stay, sir. I " His face worked nervously. "I feel toward the Captain as I would to my own son, sir. I

have already thought that perhaps the old nursery has been cleaned and aired for weeks, Mr. Spencer."

Clayton felt a thrill of understanding for the old man through all the years he had watched and served them.

He had reflected their joys and their sorrows. He had suffered the family destiny without having shaped it. He

had lived, vicariously, their good hours and their bad. And now, in his old age, he was waiting again for the

"I don't know. I shall keep my rooms. But I shall probably live at the club. The young people ought to be

"No, Mr. Spencer. I intended to, at one time. I came to this country to make a home, and as I was rather a

Clayton caught the echo of an old pain in Buckham's repressed voice. Buckham, too! Was there in the life of

every man some woman tragedy? Buckham, sitting alone in his west window and looking toward the sunset,

"She lost her only son at Neuve Chapelle," Buckham was saying quietly. "In a way, it was as tho I had lost a

boy. She never cared for the man she married. He was a fine boy, sir. I you may remember the night I was

"I have, sir. But I don't know. I like to remember her as she used to be. I have some beautiful memories. And

I think sometimes it is better to live on memories. They are more real than well, than reality, sir."

Long after Buckham had withdrawn, Clayton paced the floor of the library. Was Buckham right? Was the

real life of a man his mental life? Was any love so great as a man's dream of love? Peace was on the way.

Soon this nightmare of war would be over, and in the great awakening love would again take the place of

hate. Love of man for man, of nation for nation. Peace and the things of peace. Time to live. Time to hope,

with the deathcloud gone. Time to work and time to play. Time to love a woman and cherish her for the rest

His failure with Natalie had lost him something. She had cost him his belief in himself. Her last words had

"I admit all your good qualities, Clay. Heaven knows they are evident enough. But you are the sort people

Yet that night he had had a curious sense that old Buckham loved him. Maybe he was the sort men loved and

He sat down and leaned back in his chair, watching the firelogs. He felt very tired. What was that Buckham

had said about memories? But Buckham was old. He was young, young and strong. There would be many

>From the wall over the mantel Natalie's portrait still surveyed the room with its delicate complacence. He

looked up at it. Yes, Natalie had been right, he was not the sort to make a woman happy. There were plenty

of men, young men, men still plastic, men who had not known shipwreck, and some such man Audrey would

He got up. His desk was covered with papers, neatly endorsed by his secretary. He turned out all the lights

but his desk lamp. Natalie's gleaming fleshtones died into the shadows, and he stood for a moment, looking

up at it, a dead thing, remote, flat, without significance. Then he sat down at his desk and took up a bundle of

Audrey was in Paris on the eleventh of November. Now and then she got back there, and reveled for a day or

two in the mere joy of paved streets and great orderly buildings. She liked the streets and the crowds. She

liked watching the American boys swaggering along, smoking innumerable cigarets and surveying the city

with interested, patronizing eyes. And, always, walking briskly along the Rue Royale or the Avenue de

l'Opera, or in the garden of the Tuileries where the schoolboys played their odd French games, her eyes

Any tall man in civilian clothes set her heart beating faster. She was quite honest with herself; she knew that

she was watching for Clay, and she had a magnificent shamelessness in her quest. And now at last The Daily

Mail had announced his arrival in France, and at first every ring of her telephone had sent her to it, somewhat

breathless but quite confident. He would, she considered, call up the Red Cross at the Hotel Regina, and they

Then, on that Monday morning, which was the eleventh, she realized that he would not call her up. She knew

it suddenly and absolutely. She sat down, when the knowledge came to her, with a sickening feeling that if he

did not come to her now he never would come. Yet even then she did not doubt that he cared. Cared as

She tried very hard, sitting there by her wood fire in the orderly uniform which made her so quaintly young

and boyish, to understand the twisted mental processes that kept him away from her, now that he was free.

And, in the end, she came rather close to the truth: his sense of failure; his loss of confidence in himself

where his love life was concerned; the strange twisting and warping that were Natalie's sole legacy from their

For months she had been tending broken bodies and broken spirits. But the broken pride of a man was a

She did not know where he was stopping, and in the congestion of the Paris hotels it would be practically

impossible to trace him. And there, too, her own pride stepped in. He must come to her. He knew she cared.

Surveying the past months she wondered, not for the first time, what had held them apart so long, against the

urge that had become the strongest thing in life to them both. The strength in her had come from him. She

knew that. But where had Clay got his strength? Men were not like that, often. Failing final happiness, they

Perhaps, for the first and last time, she saw Clayton Spencer that morning with her mind, as well as with her

heart. She saw him big and generous and fine, but she saw him also not quite so big as his love, conventional,

bound by tradition and early training, somewhat rigid, Calvinistic, and dominated still by a fierce sex pride.

At once the weaknesses of the middle span, and its safety. And, womanfashion, she loved him for both his

weakness and his strength. A bigger man might have taken her. A smaller man would have let her go. Clay

was just Clay; singlehearted, intelligent but not shrewd, blundering, honest Clay.

She had a small sense of shame that, on that day of all others, she should be obsessed with her own affairs.

This was a great day. That morning, if all went well, the war was to cease. The curtain was to fall on the great

melodrama, and those who had watched it and those who had played in it would with the drop of the curtain

"Home!" she repeated. She had no home. But it was a great day, nevertheless. Only that morning the

"And Madame will go back to the life she lived before." Her eyes had turned to where, on the dressingtable,

lay the gold fittings of Audrey's dressingcase. She visualized Audrey, back in rich, opulent America,

"Madame must be lovely in the costume for a ball," she said, and sighed. For her, a farm in Brittany, the

Sitting there alone Audrey felt already the reactions of peace. The war had torn up such roots as had held her.

She was terribly aware, too, that she had outgrown her old environment. The old days were gone. The old

Audrey was gone; and in her place was a quiet woman, whose hands had known service and would never

again be content to be idle. Yet she knew that, with the war, the world call would be gone. Not again, for her,

detached, impersonal service. She was not of the great of the earth. What she wanted, quite simply, was the

service of love. To have her own and to care for them. She hoped, very earnestly, that she would be able to

look beyond her own four walls, to see distress and to help it, but she knew, as she knew herself, that the real

She felt a certain impatience at herself. This was to be the greatest day in the history of the world, and while

all the earth waited for the signal guns, she waited for a man who had apparently determined not to take her

She went out onto her small stone balcony, on the Rue Danou, and looked out to where, on the Rue de la

Paix, the city traffic moved with a sort of sporadic expectancy. Men stopped and consulted their watches. A

few stood along the curb, and talked in low voices. Groups of men in khaki walked by, or stopped to glance

into the shop windows. They, too, were waiting. She could see, far below, her valet de chambre in his green

felt apron, and the concierge in his blue frock coat and brass buttons, unbending in the new democracy of

Suddenly Audrey felt the same exaltation that had been in Suzanne's eyes. Those boys below in uniform

they were not tragic now. They were the hope of the world, not its sacrifice. They were going to live. They

She went into her bedroom and put on her service hat. And as she opened the door Suzanne was standing

outside, one hand upraised. Into the quiet hallway there came the distant sound of the signal guns.

"C'est l'armistice!" cried Suzanne, and suddenly broke into wild hysterical sobbing.

All the way downstairs Audrey was praying, not articulately, but in her heart, that this was indeed the end;

that the grapes of wrath had all been trampled; that the nations of the world might again look forward instead

of back. And because she was not of the great of the earth, but only a loving woman that somewhere Clay

When a great burden is lifted, the relief is not always felt at once. The galled places still ache. The sense of

weight persists. And so with Paris. Not at once did the city rejoice openly. It prayed first, and then it counted

the sore spots, and they were many. And it was dazed, too. There had been no time to discount peace in

The streets filled at once, but at first it was with a chastened people. Audrey herself felt numb and unreal. She

moved mechanically with the shifting crowd, looking overhead as a captured German plane flew by, trying to

comprehend the incomprehensible. But by midday the sober note of the crowds had risen to a higher pitch.

A file of American doughboys, led by a corporal with a tin trumpet and officered by a sergeant with an

enormous American cigar, goosestepped down the Avenue de l'Opera, gaining recruits at every step. It

snakedanced madly through the crowd, singing that one lyric standby of Young America: "Hail! hail! the

But the gang was not all there, and they knew it. Some of them lay in the Argonne, or at ChateauThierry,

and for them peace had come too late. But the Americans, like the rest of the world, had put the past behind

them. Here was the present, the glorious present, and Paris on a sunny Monday. And after that would be

"Hail, hail, the gang's all here, What the hell do we care? What the hell do we care? Hail, hail, the gang's all

Gradually the noise became uproarious. There were no bands in Paris, and any schoolboy with a tin horn or

a toy drum could start a procession. Bearded little poilus, arm in arm from curb to curb, marched grinning

down the center of the streets, capturing and kissing pretty midinettes, or surrounding officers and dancing

madly; Audrey saw an Algerian, ragged and dirty from the battlefields, kiss on both cheeks a portly British

Admiral of the fleet, and was herself kissed by a French sailor, with extreme robustness and a slight tinge of

If only Clay were seeing all this! He had worked so hard. He had a right to this wonderful hour, at least. If he

had gone to the front, to see Graham but then it must be rather wonderful at the front, too. She tried to

visualize it; the guns quiet, and the strained look gone from the faces of the men, with the wonderful feeling

She felt a curious shrinking from the people she knew. For this one day she wanted to be alone. This peace

was a thing of the soul, and of the soul alone. She knew what it would be with the people she knew best in

Paris, hastily arranged riotous parties, a great deal of champagne and noise, and, overlying the real

sentiment, much sentimentality. She realized, with a faint smile, that the old Audrey would have welcomed

that very gayety. She was even rather resentful with herself for her own aloofness.

She quite forgot luncheon, and early afternoon found her on the balcony of the Crillon Hotel, overlooking the

Place de la Concorde. Paris was truly awake by that time, and going mad. The longquiet fountains were

playing, Poilus and American soldiers had seized captured German cannon and were hauling them wildly

about. If in the morning the crowd had been largely khaki, now the French blue predominated. Flags and

confetti were everywhere, and every motor, as it, pushed slowly through the crowd, carried on roof and

running board and engine hood crowds of selfinvited passengers. A British band was playing near the

fountain. A line of helmets above the mass and wild cheers revealed French cavalry riding through, and,

heralded by jeers and much applause came a procession of the proletariat, of odds and ends, soldiers and

shopgirls, mechanics and streetsweepers and cabmen and students, carrying an effigy of the Kaiser on a

As the sun went down, the outlines of the rojoicing city took on the faint mistblue of a dream city. It

softened the outlines of the Eiffel tower to strange and fairylike beauty and gave to the trees in the Tuileries

gardens the lack of definition of an old engraving. And as if to remind the rejoicing of the price of their

happiness, there came limping through the crowd a procession of the mutilees. They stumped along on

wooden legs or on crutches; they rode in wheeled chairs; they were led, who could not see. And they smiled

and cheered. None of them was whole, but every one was a full man, for all that.

Audrey cried, shamelessly like Suzanne, but quietly. And, not for the first time that day, she thought of Chris.

She had never loved him, but it was pitiful that he could not have lived. He had so loved life. He would have

so relished all this, the pageantry of it, and the gayety, and the night's revelry that was to follow. Poor Chris!

He had thrown everything away, even life. The world perhaps was better that these mutilees below had given

what they had. But Chris had gone like a pebble thrown into a lake. He had made his tiny ripple and had

Then she remembered that she was not quite fair. Perhaps she had never been fair to Chris. He had given all

he had. He had not lived well, but he had died well. And there was something to be said for death. For the

first time in her healthy life she wondered about death, standing here on the Crillon balcony, with the city

gone mad with life below her. Death was quiet. It might be rather wonderful. She thought, if Clay did not

want her, that perhaps it would be very comforting just to die and forget about everything.

>From beneath the balcony there came again, lustily the shouts of a dozen doughboys hauling a German gun:

"Hail! hail! the gang's all here! What the hell do we care? What the hell do we care? Hail, hail, the gang's all

Then, that night, Clay came. The roistering city outside had made of her little sittingroom a sort of

sanctuary, into which came only faintly the blasts of horns, hoarse strains of the "Marseillaise" sung by an

unvocal people, the shuffling of myriad feet, the occasional semihysterical screams of women.

"Mr. Spencer is calling," said the concierge over the telephone, in his slow English. And suddenly a tight

band snapped which had seemed to bind Audrey's head all day. She was calm. She was herself again. Life

was very wonderful; peace was very wonderful. The dear old world. The good old world. The kind, loving,

tender old world, which separated people that they might know the joy of coming together again. She wanted

to sing, she wanted to hang over her balcony and teach the unvocal French the "Marseillaise."

Yet, when she had opened the door, she could not even speak. And Clay, too, after one long look at her, only

held out his arms. It was rather a long time, indeed, before they found any words at all. Audrey was the first,

Then he took off his overcoat and put it down, and placed his hat on the table, and said, very simply: "I

Then there was one of those silences which come when words have shown their absolute absurdity. It seemed

"It takes two to make a failure," she said dauntlessly. "I wouldn't let you fail again, Clay. Not if you love

"If I love you!" Then he was, somehow, in that grotesque position that is only absurd to the onlooker, on his

knees beside her. His terrible selfconsciousness was gone. He only knew that, somehow, some way, he must

prove to her his humility, his love, his terrible fear of losing her again, his hope that together they might make

The little room was a sanctuary. The war lay behind them. Wasted and troubled years lay behind them.

Youth, first youth, was gone, with its illusions and its dreams. But before them lay the years of fulfilment,

years of understanding. Youth demanded everything, and was discontented that it secured less than its

demands. Now they asked but three things, work, and peace, and love. And the greatest of these was love.

Something like that he said to her, when the first inarticulateness had passed, and when, as is the way of a

man with the woman who loves him, he tried to lay his soul as well as his heart at her feet. The knowledge

that the years brought. That love in youth was a plant of easy growth, springing up in many soils. But that the

love of the middle span of a man's life, whether that love be the early love purified by fire, or a new love,

sowed in sacrifice and watered with tears, the love that was to carry a man and a woman through to the end,

the last love, was God's infinitely precious gift. A gift to take the place of the things that had gone with youth,