on, revolt. Evidently he saw himself in a situation he neither
invited nor understood. "Who'd think of finding a woman like that on a
New England doorstep talking about foddering the cows?"

Nan considered the wisely circumspect thing to say and managed tamely:

"She's a good woman."

They went on.

"Yes," said Raven, after a while, "she's a good woman. But does she want
to be? Or isn't there anything inside her to make her want to be
anything else?"

"I have an idea," said Nan, going carefully, "most of the men she's
known have wanted her to be something else."

"Now what do you mean by that?" said Raven irritably. "And what do you
know about it anyway? You're nothing but a little girl."

"You keep saying that," said Nan, with composure, "because it gives you
less responsibility."

He stared at her, forgetting Tira.

"Responsibility?" he repeated. "What responsibility is there I don't
want to take--about you?"

"You don't want me to be a woman," said Nan. "You want me to be a little
girl, always adoring you, just enough, not too much. You've been adored
enough by women, Rookie."

They both knew she was talking in a hidden language. It was not women
she meant; it was Aunt Anne.

"But," said she, persisting, "I'm quite grown up. I've been in the War,
just as deep as you have, as deep as Dick. I've taken it all at a
gulp--the whole business, I mean, life, things as they are. I couldn't
any more go back to the Victorian striped candy state of mind I was
taught to pattern by than you could yourself."

"You let the Victorians alone," growled Raven. "Much you know about
'em."

"They were darlings," said Nan. "They had more brains, any ten of 'em,
than a million of us put together. But it does happen to be true they
didn't see what human nature is, under the skin. We do. We've scratched
it and we know. It's a horrible sight, Rookie."

"What is it?" said Raven. "What is under the skin?"

Nan considered.

"Well," she said finally, "there's something savage. Not strong,
splendid savage, you know, but pretending to be big Injun and not
fetching it. Wearing red blankets, and whooping, and tearing raw meat. O
Rookie, how do folks talk? I can't, even to you. But the world
isn't--well, it isn't as nice as I thought it: not so clean. You ought
to know. You don't like it either."

"So," said Raven, meditatively, "you don't like it."

"It's no matter whether I like it or not," said Nan, in a chilly way he
interp