“I want to know,” she said. “Perhaps,” she added, “the helpmate theory was intended to apply only to our bodies. There was nothing said about our souls. Perhaps God doesn’t have to work in pairs. Perhaps we were meant to stand alone.”!

“Your mother’s,” he answered. “I built them the year I came back from America and gave them to her. I thought it would interest her. Perhaps it would, if I had left her to her own ways.” Suddenly its ticking ceased. It had become again a piece of lifeless mechanism. The hands pointed to six minutes past. Joan took off her hat and laid it aside.

“To tell the truth,” he answered, “that’s exactly what I’ve been saying to myself. I shan’t be any good. I don’t see myself sticking a bayonet into even a German. Unless he happened to be abnormally clumsy. I tried to shoot a rabbit once. I might have done it if the little beggar, instead of running away, hadn’t turned and looked at me.” She held out a large strong hand and gave Joan a longish grip. “You’re right,” she said, “we must get her out of this house at once. Forgive me.” Flossie’s young man was standing near the fire talking, or rather listening, to a bird-like little woman in a short white frock and blue ribbons. A sombre lady just behind her, whom Joan from the distance took to be her nurse, turned out to be her secretary, whose duty it was to be always at hand, prepared to take down any happy idea that might occur to the bird-like little woman in the course of conversation. The bird-like little woman was Miss Rose Tolley, a popular novelist. She was explaining to Flossie’s young man, whose name was Sam Halliday, the reason for her having written “Running Waters,” her latest novel.