t, a man of
charming enthusiasms that just missed being extravagances, who could
bring zest to his virtues as well as to his follies.

"Surely," she thought, "something more than inclination must have pushed
him into this deadly stagnation."

And at once Miss Munch's insinuating question leaped up to answer:

"You know about his wife, of course!"

Were men put out of countenance by such impersonal tricks of fortune?
Impersonal?... this domestic tragedy?... Yes, Claire felt that it must
be, otherwise the man tramping at her side would have wrestled so
passionately against fate as to have come away at least spattered with
the mud of defeat. No, Stillman was not defeated, he was merely
arrested, restrained, held for orders.

He had been in London when the war broke out. He had stayed long enough
to watch the stolid, easy-going British public awake to the seriousness
of the encounter, coming home after the first air raids.

"I didn't mind being killed," he laughed, in explanation of his sudden
flight. "But I didn't like being so frightfully messed up in the
process. I want a chance to strike back when I'm cornered. The Zeppelin
game was too much like a rabbit-drive to suit me."

As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of
the spirit. The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to
be denied. But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a
bit judicial, always well poised. He had his sympathies, but they did
not appear vitalized by extravagances of feeling. Yet here and there
Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like brief flashes of sunlight
through a somber forest.

"And the draft--what do you think of that?" The question rose to her
lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the
way of convictions.

He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden
refreshment:

"It helps ... some of us. There are many who can't decide for
themselves. The obvious duty isn't always the correct one. In my
case...."

He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim
region of musing. They both fell silent. But Claire knew. There was that
haunting hope, almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get
better. That was what he was waiting for! It might come to-morrow ...
next week ... in a year ... never! But when it did come he felt that he
must be there, ready. She wondered whether he loved his wife v