way to go to
hunt for trouble, don't it? A man hasn't got much control over
his own life, Claude. If it ain't poverty or disease that
torments him, it's a name on the map. I could have made out
pretty well, if it hadn't been for China, and some other things....
If Carrie'd had to teach for her clothes and help pay off
my notes, like old man Harrison's daughters, like enough she'd
have stayed at home. There's always something. I don't know what
to say about showing these letters to Enid."

"Oh, she will have to know about it, Mr. Royce. If she feels that
she ought to go to Carrie, it wouldn't be right for me to
interfere."

Mr. Royce shook his head. "I don't know. It don't seem fair that
China should hang over you, too."

When Claude got home he remarked as he handed Enid the letters,
"Your father has been a good deal upset by this. I never saw him
look so old as he did today."

Enid studied their contents, sitting at her orderly little desk,
while Claude pretended to read the paper.

"It seems clear that I am the one to go," she said when she had
finished.

"You think it's necessary for some one to go? I don't see it."

"It would look very strange if none of us went," Enid replied
with spirit.

"How, look strange?"

"Why, it would look to her associates as if her family had no
feeling."

"Oh, if that's all!" Claude smiled perversely and took up his
paper again. "I wonder how it will look to people here if you go
off and leave your husband?"

"What a mean thing to say, Claude!" She rose sharply, then
hesitated, perplexed. "People here know me better than that. It
isn't as if you couldn't be perfectly comfortable at your
mother's." As he did not glance up from his paper, she went into
the kitchen.

Claude sat still, listening to Enid's quick movements as she
opened up the range to get supper. The light in the room grew
greyer. Outside the fields melted into one another as evening
came on. The young trees in the yard bent and whipped about under
a bitter north wind. He had often thought with pride that winter
died at his front doorstep; within, no draughty halls, no chilly
corners. This was their second year here. When he was driving
home, the thought that he might be free of this house for a long
while had stirred a pleasant excitement in him; but now, he
didn't want to leave it. Something grew soft in him. He wondered
whether they couldn't try again, and make things go better. Enid
was singing in the