man was emphatic without being convincing. Audrey watched the
faces about her, standing in the crowd herself, and a sense of the
futility of it all gripped her. All these men, and only a feeble cheer
as a boy still in his teens agreed to volunteer. All this effort for
such scant result, and over on the other side such dire need! But one
thing cheered her. Beside her, in the crowd, a portly elderly Jew was
standing with his hat in his hand, and when a man near him made some
jeering comment, the Jew brought his hand down on his shoulder.

"Be still and listen," he said. "Or else go away and allow others to
listen. This is our country which calls."

"It's amusing, isn't it?" Audrey heard a woman's voice near her,
carefully inflected, slightly affected.

"It's rather stunning, in a way. It's decorative; the white faces, and
that chap in the wagon, and the gasoline torch."

"I'd enjoy it more if I'd had my dinner."

The man laughed.

"You are a most brazen combination of the mundane and the spiritual,
Natalie. You are all soul--after you are fed. Come on. It's near here."

Audrey's hands were very cold. By the movement of the crowd behind her,
she knew that Natalie and Rodney were making their escape, toward food
and a quiet talk in some obscure restaurant in the neighborhood. Fierce
anger shook her. For this she and Clayton were giving up the only hope
they had of happiness--that Natalie might carry on a cheap and stealthy
flirtation.

She made a magnificent appeal that night, and a very successful one.
The lethargic crowd waked up and pressed forward. There were occasional
cheers, and now and then the greater tribute of convinced silence. And
on a box in the wagon the young clergyman eyed her almost wistfully.
What a woman she was! With such a woman a man could live up to the best
in him. Then he remembered his salary in a mission church of twelve
hundred a year, and sighed.

He gained courage, later on, and asked Audrey if she would have some
coffee with him, or something to eat. She looked tired.

"Tired!" said Audrey. "I am only tired these days when I am not
working."

"You must not use yourself up. You are too valuable to the country."

She was very grateful. After all, what else really mattered? In a little
glow she accepted his invitation.

"Only coffee," she said. "I have had dinner. Is there any place near?"

He piloted her through the crowd, now rapidly dispersing. Here and there
some man, often