aid that America
could never put an army across or feed it if she got it there. If you
go on strike you'll prove the truth of that."

Then she began to chant his own song to him. A man likes to hear his
nobler words recalled. Here is one of the best resources a woman has.
Mamise was speaking for him as well as for herself when she said:

"Oh, I remember how you thrilled me with your talk of all the ships
you would build. You said it was the greatest poem ever written, the
idea of making ships faster than the Germans could sink them. It was
that that made me want to be a ship-builder. It was the first big
ambition I ever had. And now you tell me it's useless and foolish!"

He saw the point without further pressure.

"You're right," he said. "My job's here. It would be selfish and showy
to knock off this work and grab a gun. I'll stick. It's hard, though,
to settle down here when everybody else is bound for France."

Mamise was one of those unusual wise persons who do not continue to
argue a case that has already been won. She added only the warm
personal note to help out the cold generality.

"There's my ship to finish, you know. You couldn't leave poor _Mamise_
out there on the stocks unfinished."

The personal note was so warm that he reached out for her. He needed
her in his arms. He caught her roughly to him and knew for the first
time the feel of her body against his, the sweet compliance of her
form to his embrace.

But there was an anachronism to her in the contact. She was in one of
those moods of exaltation, of impersonal nationalism, that women were
rising to more and more as a new religion. She was feeling terribly
American, and, though she had no anger for him and saw no insult in
his violence, she seemed to be above and beyond mere hugging and
kissing. She was in a Joan of Arc humor, so she put his hands away,
yet squeezed them with fervor, for she knew that she had saved him
from himself and to himself. She had brought him back to his east
again, and the morning is always wonderful.

She had renewed his courage, however, so greatly that he did not
despair of her. He merely postponed her, as people were postponing
everything beautiful and lovable "for the duration of the war."

He reached for the buzzer. Already Mamise heard its rattlesnake
clatter. But his hand paused and went to hers as he stammered:

"We've gone through this together, and you've helped me--I can't tell
you how much, honey. On