setting her superlative worth demands. That this did not happen to
Anthony March was due to the fact that the young woman he--not so much
saw as gradually perceived, was his sister Sarah's friend, Jennie
MacArthur.

Independence had been forced upon Jennie so early that she never was
called upon to decide whether she liked it or not. She had an inquiring
mind--perhaps experimental would be the better word for it--abundant
self-confidence and a good stiff backbone. It was easy to make the
mistake of thinking her hard. She was not a pretty woman, with her
sandy hair and rather striking freckles, but she was well formed, she
dressed always with that crisp cleanliness which is the extravagant
standard of young women who work in good offices, and her voice had an
attractive timbre.

To Sarah March (who, having fought for independence, was a little at a
loss what to do with it) Jennie's experience and her rather interesting
range of friends were a Godsend. It was at one of Jennie's parties in the
tiny pair of rooms where she lived alone that Sarah met Walter Davis, a
mechanical draftsman by day and an ardent young Socialist by night, whom
she afterward married.

On the other hand, the home which Sarah was sometimes rather dubious
about the advantage of possessing, was to Jennie a delightful place to be
a familiar visitor in. She liked old David, who was a surprisingly
charming person when he had no authority over you, she liked Mrs. March,
she adored little Ben--young Ben he was now rapidly growing up to be--and
finally, she began taking an interest which eventually outweighed all the
rest, in the family black sheep, Anthony.

The intimacy between them which began around the time of Sarah's marriage
continued intermittently for nearly four years. It had not, indeed, been
definitely broken off when he went into the army.

When the attraction faded as it had definitely begun to do some months
before he went to Camp Grant, it left their friendship unimpaired,
enriched on the contrary. He could talk to her more easily, confide his
thoughts to her more freely than to any one else he knew.

This ability to be confided in and depended upon was one of her special
talents. She had emerged, years before, from the crowded stenographers'
room in a big engineering concern into the private office of the chief.
He was an erratic genius, brilliant, irritable, exacting, tireless, all
but impossible to maintain any consistent relation w