h dooryards of trampled earth and a
general air of poverty, goats, and lunch-pails. He tramped on, a
sullen and youthless man. Presently he was in shaggy, open country.

He was frightened by his desertion of Ruth, but he did not want to go
back, nor even telephone to her. He had to diagram where and what and
why he was; determine what he was to do.

He disregarded the war as a cause of trouble. Had there been no extra
business-pressure caused by the war, there would have been some other
focus for their misunderstandings. They would have quarreled over
clothes and aviation, Aunt Emma and Martin Dockerill, poverty and
dancing, quite the same.

Walking steadily, with long periods when he did not think, but stared
at the dusty stars or the shaky, ill-lighted old houses, he alined her
every fault, unhappily rehearsed every quarrel in which she had been
to blame, his lips moving as he emphasized the righteous retorts he
was almost certain he had made. It was not hard to find faults in her.
Any two people who have spent more than two days together already have
the material for a life-long feud, in traits which at first were
amusing or admirable. Ruth's pretty manners, of which Carl had been
proud, he now cited as snobbish affectation. He did not spare his
reverence, his passion, his fondness. He mutilated his soul like a
hermit. He recalled her pleasure in giving him jolly surprises, in
writing unexpected notes addressed to him at the office, as fussy
discontent with a quiet, normal life; he regarded her excitement over
dances as evidence that she was so dependent on country-club society
that he would have to spend the rest of his life drudging for her.

He wanted to flee. He saw the whole world as a conspiracy of secret,
sinister powers that are concealed from the child, but to the man are
gradually revealed by a pitiless and never-ending succession of
misfortunes. He would never be foot-loose again. His land of heart's
desire would be the office.

But the ache of disappointment grew dull. He was stunned. He did not
know what had happened; did not even know precisely how he came to be
walking here. Now and then he remembered anew that he had sharply left
Ruth--Ruth, his dear girl!--remembered that she was not at hand, ready
to explain with love's lips the somber puzzles of life. He was
frightened again, and beginning to be angry with himself for having
been angry with Ruth.

He had walked many miles. Brown fields came