be done; but I haven't known how
to set about them, or where to begin. Don't you think we may be able to
find the way together?"

She seemed suddenly to cling to him. "Oh, Thor, if you'd only make me
half as good as you are!"

Perhaps the ardor with which he seized her was the unspent force of the
longing roused in him by Rosie. Perhaps it blazed up in him merely
because she was a woman. For two or three days now his need of the
feminine had been acute. Did she minister to that? or did she bring him
something that could be offered by but one woman in the world? He
couldn't tell. He only knew that he had her in his arms, with his lips
on hers, and that he was content. He was content, with a sense of
fulfilment and appeasement. It was as if he had been straining for a
great prize and won the second--but at a moment when he had expected
none at all. There was happiness in it, even if it was a quieter,
staider happiness than that of which he now knew himself to be capable.

"You're home to me, Lois," he murmured as he held her. "You're home to
me."

He meant that though there were strange, entrancing Edens on which he
had not been allowed to enter, there was, nevertheless, a vast peace of
mind to be found at the restful, friendly fireside.

"And you're the whole wide world to me, Thor," she whispered, clasping
her arms about his neck and drawing his face nearer.

CHAPTER XVI

On leaving Lois and returning homeward, Thor met his brother at the
entrance to the avenue. They had not spoken since the preceding night.
On purpose to avoid a meeting, Claude had breakfasted early and escaped
to town before Thor had come down-stairs. In the glimpse Thor had caught
of his younger brother as the latter left the house he saw that he
looked white and worried.

He looked white and worried still under the glare of street electricity.
As they walked up the driveway together Thor took the opportunity to put
himself right in the matter that lay most urgently on his mind. "Lois
and I are to be married on one of the last days of February," he said,
with his best attempt to speak casually. "She wants to work it in before
Lent, which begins on the first day of March. Have scruples about
marrying in Lent in their church. Quiet affair. No one but the two
families."

Claude asked the question as to which he felt most curiosity. "Going to
tell father?"

"To-night. No use shilly-shallying about things of that sort. Father
mayn't