e of
her. And what was the answer?

"Surely," said Farwell, straightening himself in the saddle, "surely to
blazes I'm not getting fond of the girl!"

As became a decent, respectable, contented bachelor, he shied from the
idea. It was absolutely ridiculous, unheard-of. The girl was all right,
sensible, good-looking. She suited him as well as any woman he had ever
met; but that, after all, was not saying much. He liked her--he made
that concession candidly--but as for anything more--nothing to it!

But the idea, once born, refused to be disposed of thus summarily; it
persisted. He found himself recalling trivial things, all pertaining to
Sheila--tricks of manner, of speech, intonations, movements of the
hands, body, and lips--these avalanched themselves upon him, swamping
connected, reasonable thought.

"What cursed nonsense!" said Farwell angrily to himself. "I don't care
a hang about her, of course. I'm dead sure she doesn't care for me.
Anyway, I don't want to get married--yet. I'm not in shape to marry.
Why, what the devil would _I_ do with a wife? Where'd I put her?"

A wife! Huh! Instantly he was a prey to misgivings. He recalled
shudderingly brother engineers whose wives dragged about with them,
living on the edge of construction camps under canvas in summer, in
rough-boarded, tar-papered shacks in the winter; or perhaps in
half-furnished cottages in some nearby jerk-water town.

He had pitied the men, fought shy of the women. Most of them had put
the best face upon their lives, rejoicing in the occasional streaks of
fat, eating the lean uncomplainingly. They led a migratory existence,
moved arbitrarily, like pawns, at the will of eminent and elderly
gentlemen a thousand or so miles away, whom they did not know and who
did not know them. Continually, as their temporary habitations began to
take on the semblance of homes, they were transferred, from mountains
to plains, from the far north to the tropics. Their few household goods
bore the scars of many movings--by rail, by steamer, by freight wagon,
and even by pack train.

And there were those whose responsibilities forced them to abandon life
at the front. These set up establishments in the new, cheap residential
districts of cities. There the wives kept camp; thither, at long
intervals, the husbands took journeys ranging from hundreds of miles to
thousands. True, there were those who had attained eminence. These
lived properly in well-appointed houses in