g about here."

* * * * *

"Darrie, will you and Ruth have the veal steak cooked by six o'clock?"

I noticed that he did not include his wife. Also, I looked at him in
amazement ... a look the significance of which he instantly caught ...
Steak? Meat?

"I've done a lot of experimenting in dietetics," he explained, "and I
have finally been brought to face the fact, after years of
vegetarianism, that there's nothing like a good steak for a
brain-worker. It's easily digested and affords ready nourishment ...
vegetables, yes ... but it takes up so much vital energy to digest them
... the meat-eating races are the dominant races of the world ... but,"
he flashed quickly, "I always try to be logical and consistent. If I eat
meat, I must be willing to kill the animal I eat. I must not stand off
in dainty horror over the butcher's trade, while I live by it."

"Surely you don't mean that you do your own butchering?"

"No ... not that ... but I've proven to myself that I can kill ... we
had a dog, a mongrel, that attached itself to us ... tore up everything
in my study ... tore the sheets and pillow slips on the beds ... I took
it out into the woods," he ended gravely, "and killed ... shot it ... of
course I had to summon up all my resolution ... but I did it."

While admitting the almost childlike exactness of my friend's logic, I
could not help smiling to myself at his grotesque sincerity....

We walked far ... through green fields ... over flashing brooks ...
through lovely woodland vistas ... we paused on the top of a hill, with
vistas all about us ... just as we had done on Azure Mound in Kansas....

"I asked you to take this walk with me in order to tell you
something.... Johnnie, you're my friend, and that is why I don't want
you to stay at my house with us. I want you to put up at the Community
Inn, at my expense ... eat your meals with us, of course."

I was surprised. He did not want me in the house _because I was his
friend_!... in silence I waited his further explanation....

"Yes," he continued, "I want to spare you trouble ... Hildreth and I,
you see," he proceeded with painful frankness, "are quite near the
breaking point ... I don't think we'll be together very many months
longer ... and ... and ... I don't want you to become involved ... for
I'm simply desperate."

"But, Penton, how could I become involved?"

"Johnnie, you don't know women, or you wouldn't ask ... espe