ng like that?"

"I don't know. Ever since the war, I suppose. I just got to thinking--"

Her voice trailed off.

"I have some of Chris's Scotch, if you want a high-ball."

"Thanks, no. Audrey, do you hear from Chris?"

"Yes. He's in a dangerous place now, and sometimes at night--I suppose
I did force him, in a way. He was doing no good here, and I thought he
would find himself over there. But I didn't send him. He---Tell me about
making shells."

He was a little bit disappointed. Evidently she did not depend on him
enough to tell him Chris's story. But again, she was being loyal to
Chris.

He told her about the mill, phrasing his explanation in the simplest
language; the presses drilling on white-hot metal; the great anvils; the
forge; the machine-shop, with its lathes, where the rough surfaces of
the shells were first rough-turned and then machined to the most exact
measurements. And finding her interested, he told her of England's
women workers, in their khaki-colored overalls and caps, and of the
convent-like silence and lack of movement in the filling-sheds, where
one entered with rubber-shod feet, and the women, silent and intent, sat
all day and all night, with queer veils over their faces, filling shells
with the death load.

Audrey listened, her hands clasped behind her head.

"If other women can do that sort of thing, why can't I, Clay?"

"Nonsense."

"But why? I'm intelligent."

"It's not work for a lady."

"Lady! How old-fashioned you are! There are no ladies any more. Just
women. And if we aren't measured by our usefulness instead of our
general not-worth-a-damn-ness, well, we ought to be. Oh, I've had time
to think, lately."

He was hardly listening. Seeing her, after all those weeks, had brought
him a wonderful feeling of peace. The little room, with its fire, was
cozy and inviting. But he was quite sure, looking down at her, that he
was not in danger of falling in love with her. There was no riot in him,
no faint stirring of the emotions of that hour with the mauve book.

There was no suspicion in him that the ways of love change with the
years, that the passions of the forties, when they come, are to those of
the early years as the deep sea to a shallow lake, less easily roused,
infinitely more terrible.

"This girl you spoke about, that was the business you mentioned?"

"Yes." She hesitated. "I could have asked you that over the telephone,
couldn't I? The plain truth is that I've h