private, make-believe Eden, I must somehow begin anew.

"_Brief beauty, and much weariness...._"

Susan's line haunted me throughout the first desperate isolation of
those hours. I saw no light. I was broken in spirit. I was afraid.

Morbidity, you will say. Why, yes; why not? To be brainsick and
heartsick in a cruel and unfamiliar world is to be morbid. I quite
agree. Below the too-thin crust of a _dilettante's_ culture lies always
that hungry morass. A world had been shaken; the too-thin crust beneath
my feet had crumbled; I must slither now in slime, and either sink there
finally, be swallowed up in that sucking blackness, or by some miracle
of effort win beyond, set my feet on stiff granite, and so survive.

It is most probable that I should never have reached solid ground
unaided. It was Jimmy, of all people, who stretched forth a vigorous,
impatient hand.

Shortly after the First Battle of the Marne had dammed--we knew not how
precariously, or how completely--the deluge pouring through Belgium and
Luxemburg and Northern France, Jimmy burst in on me one evening. He had
just received a brief letter from Susan. She was stationed then at
Furnes; Mona Leslie was with her; but their former hostess, the young
pleasure-loving Comtesse de Bligny, was dead. The cause of her death
Susan did not even stop to explain.

"Mona," she hurried on, "is magnificent. Only a few months ago I pitied
her, almost despised her; now I could kiss her feet. How life had wasted
her! She doesn't know fear or fatigue, and she has just put her entire
fortune unreservedly at the service of the Belgian Government--to found
field hospitals, ambulances, and so on. The king has decorated her. Not
that she cares--has time to think about it, I mean. In a sense it
irritated her; she spoke of it all to me as an unnecessary gesture. Oh,
Jimmy, come over--we need you here! Bring all America over with you--if
you can! _Setebos_ invented neutrality; I recognize his workmanship!
Bring Ambo--bring Phil! Don't stop to think about it--_come_!"

"I'm going of course," said Jimmy. "So's Prof. Farmer. How about you,
sir?"

"Phil's going?"

"Sure. Just as soon as he can arrange it."

"His book's finished?"

"What the hell has that----" began Jimmy; then stopped dead, blushing.
"Excuse me, Mr. Hunt; but books, somehow--just now--they don't seem so
important as--_see_?"

"Not quite, Jimmy. After all, the real struggle's always between ideas,
is