erously near) she recognized a possible leader of the forces of
disruption. When she left Starker's for Johnson's (where, as she put it
to herself, she could look after Violet), she had hurled her small body
into the first breach. Johnson's was invaluable as a position whence she
could reconnoiter all the movements of the enemy.

But it was a strain upon the heart and upon the nerves; and the effect
on Winny's physique was so evident that Ranny noticed it. He noticed
that Winny was more slender and less sturdy than she used to be; her
figure, to his expert eye, suggested the hateful possibility of
flabbiness. He thought he had traced the deterioration to its source
when he asked her if she had chucked the Poly.

She had.

What did she do that for? Well--she didn't think she cared much for the
Poly. now. It was different somehow. At least that was the way she felt
about it. ("Same here," said Ranny.) And she couldn't keep up like she
did. The running played her out.

He saw her, then, a tired, indifferent little figure, padding through
the circles and the patterns of the Combined Maze; padding listlessly,
wearily, with all the magic and the joy gone out of her.

"We had grand times there together," he said then. "Do you remember the
Combined Maze?"

She remembered.

"Sometimes I think that life's like that--a maze, Winny. A sort of
Combined Maze--men and women--mixed up together."

She thought so too.

* * * * *

Violet had got used to Winny's being there. She took it for granted, as
if it also were one of those things that had to be. She depended on it,
and owned herself dependent. When Winny was there, she said, things went
right, and when she wasn't there they went wrong. She didn't know how
they had ever got along without her.

Ransome was surprised to see in Violet so large a heart and a mind so
open. For not only did she tolerate Winny, she clung, he could see that
she clung, to her like a child. She even tolerated what he wouldn't have
thought a woman would have stood for a single instant, the fact, the
palpable fact, that Ranny couldn't get along without her any more than
she could.

And if they could, the Baby couldn't. Baby (she was Dorothy now and
Dossie) cried for Winny when Winny wasn't there. She would run from her
mother's voice to hide her face in Winny's skirts. Baby wasn't ever
really happy without Winny.

That was how she had them, and she knew it, and th