“I’ll be lonely and anxious till you come back,” he said. “But that will have to be my part of the fight.” “Some men,” he answered. “Artists and poets. They have the woman within them. Men like myself—the mere fighter: we are incomplete in ourselves. Male and female created He them. We are lost without our mate.”!

Joan replaced the letter in its envelope, and laid it down upon the desk. Unconsciously a smile played about her lips. “Oh, I don’t mind so much now,” answered Joan. “Now that I’ve seen a friendly face, I shall go home and go to bed early.”

“I want you to give me up that box,” she said, “and to come away with me where I can be with you and take care of you until you are well.” She took the cigarette from her lips and her voice trembled a little. And then during college vacations, returning home with growing notions and views of her own, she had found herself so often in antagonism with him. His fierce puritanism, so opposed to all her enthusiasms. Arguing with him, she might almost have been listening to one of his Cromwellian ancestors risen from the dead. There had been disputes between him and his work-people, and Joan had taken the side of the men. He had not been angry with her, but coldly contemptuous. And yet, in spite of it all, if he had only made a sign! She wanted to fling herself crying into his arms and shake him—make him listen to her wisdom, sitting on his knee with her hands clasped round his neck. He was not really intolerant and stupid. That had been proved by his letting her go to a Church of England school. Her mother had expressed no wish. It was he who had selected it.