oise, a
Puritan. You will not be yourself, you will not be free until you get
over that."

"I'm not sure I want to get over it."

He leaned nearer to her.

"But now that I have found you, Janet, I will not let you go."

"You've no rights over me," she cried, in sudden alarm and anger. "I'm
not doing this work, I'm not wearing myself out here for you."

"Then--why are you doing it?" His suspicions rose again, and made him
reckless.

"To help the strikers," she said.... He could get no more out of her, and
presently, when Anna Mower entered the room, he left it....

More than once since her first visit to the soup kitchen in Dey Street
Janet had returned to it. The universe rocked, but here was equilibrium.
The streets were filled with soldiers, with marching strikers, terrible
things were constantly happening; the tension at Headquarters never
seemed to relax. Out in the world and within her own soul were strife and
suffering, and sometimes fear; the work in which she sought to lose
herself no longer sufficed to keep her from thinking, and the spectacle
--when she returned home--of her mother's increasing apathy grew more and
more appalling. But in Dey Street she gained calmness, was able to renew
something of that sense of proportion the lack of which, in the chaos in
which she was engulfed, often brought her to the verge of madness. At
first she had had a certain hesitation about going back, and on the
occasion of her second visit had walked twice around the block before
venturing to enter. She had no claim on this man. He was merely a chance
acquaintance, a stranger--and yet he seemed nearer to her, to understand
her better than any one else she knew in the world. This was queer,
because she had not explained herself; nor had he asked her for any
confidences. She would have liked to confide in him--some things: he gave
her the impression of comprehending life; of having, as his specialty,
humanity itself; he should, she reflected, have been a minister, and
smiled at the thought: ministers, at any rate, ought to be like him, and
then one might embrace Christianity--the religion of her forefathers that
Rolfe ridiculed. But there was about Insall nothing of religion as she
had grown up to apprehend the term.

Now that she had taken her courage in her hands and renewed her visits,
they seemed to be the most natural proceedings in the world. On that
second occasion, when she had opened the door and palpitatingly c