lking mild gossip, and didn't even have powder on. It was ghastly--"

"Helene," said Ruyler abruptly, "what do you think is the secret of
happiness--I mean, of course, the enduring sort--perhaps content would be
the better word. Happiness is too dependent upon love, and love was never
meant for daily food. You are not by nature frivolous, and you are
capable of thought. Have you ever given any to the secret of content?"

"Yes, work," she answered promptly. "Everybody should have his daily job,
prescribed either by the state or by necessity; but something he must do
if both he and society would continue to exist."

Ruyler elevated his eyebrows and looked at her curiously. "Socialism. I
didn't know you had ever heard of it."

"Aileen and I are not such fools as we look--as you were good enough to
intimate just now. We went to a series of lectures early last winter over
at the University, on Socialism--a lot of us formed a class, but all
except Aileen and I dropped out.

"We continued to read for a time after the lectures were over, but of
course that didn't last. One drops everything for want of stimulus, and
when one begins to flutter again one is lost.

"But I heard and read and thought enough to deduce that the only vital
interest in life after one's secret happiness--which one would not dare
spread out too thin if one could in this American life--is necessary work
well done. And that is quite different from those fussy interests and
fads we create or take up for the sake of thinking we are busy and
interested.

"Polly's mother once told me she never was so happy in her life as during
those weeks after the earthquake and fire when all the servants had run
away and she had to cook for the family out in the street on a stove they
bought down in a little shop in Polk Street and set up and surrounded on
three sides by 'inside blinds.' She happened to have a talent for
cooking, and without her the family would have starved. Polly tied a
towel round her head and did the housework, or stood in a line and got
the daily rations from the Government. She never thought once of--"

"Of what?"

"Oh, of doing anything rather than expire of boredom. She and Rex had
been married a year and were living at home. Rex and Mr. Carter helped
excavate down in the business district, as the working class wouldn't
lift a finger as long as the Government was feeding them."

"There you are! Their ideal is complete leisure, and that of ou