She cast a sidewise glance at him, the old shyness mastering her. A delicate pink suffused her face. "I think I did need you," she said. "If you could only advise me!"

He moved around until he stood before her. "I can," was his grave response. "For my own good?-surely for my own good?"

"Surely for your own good-or not at all."

He took his seat beside her; and as he waited for her to speak he observed with an indefinable rapture that she was passing her fingers to and fro on the seat beside her in childish embarrassment.

"I know what's wrong!" he cried. He tried to seem quite gay. "It's the seat! We never had any seat out there where we walked with Mother Nature. Come!"

He had her hand in his instantly and was leading her deeper into a shadowy glen, among tall cypress-trees.

"Where are we going?" she faltered. "We're going where we shall find the perfect truth." When he saw that her lifted face was like that of one who goes to make a sacrifice, he added more lightly: "Did you ever see the grass so beautiful?" He released her hand and stood apart from her, facing her. Then he sat down on the grass. "It's nice here," he said. "Come, you shall sit here too."

She was dismayed to find how the sound of his voice and the touch of his hand had thrilled her. She could not bear to look at him for a little time. She sank to her knees and remained in that position. A branch stirred somewhere and the sunlight touched her face, making it softly radiant. Mann looked at her stealthily. He feared to startle her by thoughts which he believed must be clearly written on his face. He wondered what it was that had been born in her soul that had given her expression this wistfulness, this high desire.

XXXIV

"A RUNAWAY WOMAN"

AFTER a while she withdrew her eyes from the remote expanse of sunlight on the grass.

"I wish it was ever right to run away," she said at last.

"You did run away once," he reminded her. "Do you mean like that?"

"I don't think I was really running away then. Nothing ever came of it. I never got anywhere.'

He was not sure he understood just what was in her mind-that he followed her vague fancies. He looked at her face; and seeing that something like a vision was passing before her eyes he waited for her to go on.

"I think the most cruel thing that can happen to you is to think you are running away, and to find out at last that you haven't been at all. When any poor creature is to be punished it must be that ... What is it that follows you, and fixes things? I've heard you talk of it."

He reflected with lowered brows; and then he smiled comprehendingly. "You mean fate?" he asked.

Her expression lightened. "That's it. I think that when fate means to be cruel, it drives you out and away, and whispers to you that you are going to find a new life. But it knows you've got such a great distance to go that you'll never find the way. You'll be like people who get lost in the woods or in the desert, who move in a circle and come back at last just where they started. I think if your heart ever breaks it must be after you've come back to the starting-point so many times that you know it isn't worth while to begin again."

He plucked thoughtfully at long blades of grass. "But you know," he suggested, "there are people who believe in another power besides fate?"

"What?" she asked.
"Can't you think?"
"You mean God?"

"That's our name for it."

"But don't the people who believe in God believe that he is good to you?"

"Yes-in the end. I believe the theory is that he sometimes punishes you for your own good; or at least that he brings bitter experiences to you so that you may understand better."

"Oh!" she cried softly; and looking at her Mann perceived that her eyes were touched with a strange, serene light.

bles like that come to you. It's simply this: do you know what love is?"

She looked at him almost fearfully. "Why do you ask me that?" she asked.

"If a woman loved a man truly, if she hadn't any doubt at all that she loved him

why, then, I think she ought never to run away. I think love would make her wise and strong. I think she would be able to do anything-if she really loved him. I think she would wreck her life forever if for any reason she ran away.

"But what did you get from it?" He reached out and laid his hand lightly on hers. "Didn't I get you?" he asked; "that is, your comradeship, and the long, happy hours with you?"

He watched her bosom rise and fall; he noted the soft light that deepened in her eyes. Then she withdrew her hand and lifted herself a little higher, so that she could look away down the avenues of the wood.

"I still don't know whether it would be right for me to run away," she said at length.

"From what?"

"Oh-from a bargain; from the thing you started out to do; from the life you helped make for yourself."

"Why, of course it would be-if you found you'd been wrong, or if you saw that you had made a mistake."

"But if there was some one else—if you had made your mistake with another. It wouldn't be right then just to think of what would be best or happiest for you. You'd have to be fair to-to the other, no matter how hard it might be. Isn't that true?”

He understood then. His brows contracted. He called upon Conscience to wait upon him, upon Inspiration to lead him. It seemed impossible to think of words, to shape an argument, that would make an unerring appeal to this strange, honest woman. Then quite unmistakably Conscience and Inspiration stood beside him, and he put from him the labored phrases that were nearly shaped.

"Susan," he said, and again he reached out and touched her hand softly; "there's

that would make every difference in the world. She would owe it to herself then to run away. She would owe it to him. She ought to give herself the chance to find love elsewhere; she ought to give him that chance. Love might come to both of them, if they sought it. Salvation might come to them. Their being together might be no better than the lot of the animals over in the zoo, that are safe from hunger and cold and cunning-but which will die at length after having escaped every danger that nature meant them to meet, and without having lived their own lives a single day."

When he ended he saw that her lips were parted as if with an exquisite pain; that her eyes were dewy with a kind of splendid misery.

"Susan!" he exclaimed, "put an end to it! You've fought long enough. Come with me, to be with me always."

She started and paled. "Oh, I couldn't!" she exclaimed. "I wasn't thinking of running away-like that. I shouldn't have the right to do that. It wouldn't be right for me; it wouldn't be fair-to you!"

"To me?" There was amazement in his tone. "To me?" he repeated.

"Don't you see?—if I was ever married to Herkimer I'm married to him now. I couldn't marry again. If I wasn't I'm a shameless creature not fit to marry any one."

You were married to him by your own decision. You can free yourself by the same power."

She lifted her hands to her cheeks and regarded the tangled grass at her knees. "And there are other kinds of unfitness.

us some day. We couldn't change that, you know."

He frowned. "Learning is nothing more than a manner you have, or a coat you wear. And nobody has very much. Look, Susan-learning is like that trick you've seen in the theatre, when the juggler takes shiny balls and makes them go round and round in a circle. The juggler is awfully in earnest while he's playing his trick. But when his act is finished and the shiny balls are put back into their box, don't you suppose he's just like other men? He thinks about the genuine things then. He longs for a chair by a hearth, and little, broken songs, and a light in the window, and a warm heart that he can lay his head against. If we're worth considering, we don't want to go on juggling after we've finished the little act the public expects of us."

She smiled wanly; and Mann knew that his words had not prevailed.

"Why, see here!" he continued eagerly. "Where do the prettiest flowers come from? From hot-houses? Not a bit of it! They come from homely gardens, and from hedges. It's enough that they are flowers, without asking how they grew. A lovely soul like yours, Susan

I couldn't think anything was important compared with it, any more than I could ask where the earth came from before I consented to live on it. There, that's how I feel about you."

She was shaking her head slowly. It seemed that she had difficulty in looking

at him.

"Susan!" he cried, coming back to the simpler words, the more urgent thought, "do you know what love is?"

Her voice rose to a flute-like note of triumph. "Oh, yes!" she cried. "It's something that hurts you-but in such a grand way! It's as if you were a cripple, and the doctor came and hurt you to make you beautiful and strong. Yes, I know what love is! It hurts you-but oh, I think it makes you whole!"

"Susan!" he cried, his hands outstretched to her. But she drew a little apart from him. One hand rested on the grass in such a way that the firm line of her breasts was sharply drawn, and her face was pitched upward toward the sky and the green leaves. She was breathing

deeply; there was a song without words, without sound, upon her lips and in her eyes. Then with swift resolution she brought her glance from distant glories and looked at him.

"I don't think I can make it quite plain," she said, “but I think it's because I know what love is that I couldn't run away. I think it must have been my knowing that there was love in the world that always stopped me from running away. You know, I wasn't really running away-when we were on the road together. I can see that now. When I was sleeping out where the trees grew, and in the little, lonely houses, and in the quiet towns-all that time I was just coming back to Herkimer. I didn't know it, but I was. I wasn't running away at all. I was living the same thoughts; I was holding fast to all I ever believed, to all I had ever been taught. There wasn't any door for me to come out of, except the one where I'd gone in. There wasn't any future. There was always, in the end, just Pleasant Lane and the old days and nights. I didn't even know how to begin to escape."

"Ah, but you were running away," declared Mann. "You've been running away always. You've been running away from what one fellow called 'a lowvaulted past.' You've been building 'statelier mansions for your soul.' You've been escaping the narrow horizons; and you're going to keep on always. I'm going with you, too. I'm going with you in spirit until we reach a place where our bodies can journey on together."

Tears dimmed her eyes. When she could speak again she said: "I like to think of that-our spirits going on together! We couldn't go any other way. Knowing what love is tells me that the spirits couldn't go on together if the bodies brought shame to them that loved. Being what I am, I couldn't bear to marry you. I think it would spoil the most beautiful thing I have ever known. The only way I'd be fit to marry any good man would be to stick to the bargain I made-with Herkimer. That doesn't seem plain, does it?-but I know you'll understand what I mean. I'm going back to him and try to help him, not be

cause my heart calls me back but because it calls me to you!"

Mann regarded her almost as if she had set sail upon strange waters. "But, Susan!" he cried. "Does happiness lie that way?"

She replied musingly: "It doesn't lie in any other way!"

His final argument was like a cry of warning: "But, Susan, is there a fighting chance for you? Is he, after all, a good man?"

She replied to the second question: "Why, you see, if he was a good man and I didn't love him, I think it would be easy to leave him. It's his being a bad man, it's his being in need of me, that makes my going back to him necessary. To run away from him in his trouble would seem -oh, like leaving a sick companion alone in an attic room and promising to come back with help, and then forgetting him while he waited and waited, with the night coming on. It's plain enough to me now. I'm going back because it's the only thing for me to do."

He leaned forward with solemn resolution. When she would have moved he cried commandingly: "Wait!" He placed his hands firmly on her shoulders. "Not because I love you," he said, "but because of your goodness." And he leaned close and kissed her on the lips.

She closed her eyes to receive that kiss; and when he released her she knew that all fear of him had forever passed. There was a new light in her eyes as she arose, as if from a grave at which she had given way to grief, only to rise with thoughts of other things.

"And if ever you want me if ever you need me--if ever you feel that you are free-Susan, you must promise to send for me."

"I promise," she said.

They walked together to the entrance to the park. Under a tall cypress-tree Mann delayed her and pointed upward. Upon the topmost branch, seemingly, the new moon stood on end: as if nature, the benevolent juggler, were performing

a pretty feat for the human beings who passed down the grassy avenues. A bird, all alone, piped mournfully.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" said Susan. At the gate he would have detained her. "You're wearing such a pretty dress," he said, regarding her with beaming eyes.

She held her arm out, and looked down, as a child might have done. “I like it, too," she replied with heightened color. She added, a little falteringly: "I made it myself."

"No!" he cried, almost joyously. "Yes, I did, too!" She seemed happier than he had ever seen her before.

Susan was in her old room at eight o'clock. But Herkimer was not there. He never came to that room again.

Late at night there was an unwonted sound of women's voices on the stairsthe voices of many women. There were excited cries.

Susan opened her door to see many dim forms under a sputtering gas-light. They were women's forms, but the faces seemed to be those of vultures. Shining eyes regarded the woman who had opened the door. The voices were suddenly hushed. All but the landlady's, which began falteringly:

"It was Herkimer

"What is it?" demanded Susan. Her voice was like a little flame in the wind.

"He was running away from a policeman; and they shot him; and he fell dead in the street."

Susan looked mutely at the faces of the vultures. With a little turn of her head she regarded the landlady. "I thank you for telling me," she said. Her voice was almost inaudible. Then she closed the door.

She closed the door and faced her room -her room and his. But she was scarcely in that room now. The world seemed to be reshaping itself. The forces that had bound and bruised her had surrendered

her up. A new door had been opened wide. At last the time had come for her to run away.

A Problem or Two

His preference sounds plausible, but one wonders whether he realized the special difficulties which would have confronted him—which have, from the first, confronted a vast number of women who are trying faithfully to adjust their households to the requirements of the war. Of all the nations at war, we are the only one whose servants are, as a rule, foreigners either the original immigrants or their children. By the time they become Americans they are apt to cease to be servants. We don't on that account dream of calling them disloyal; we don't accuse them of a lack of love for America, and least of all do we fail in appreciation of the saving remnant who loyally and intelligently co-operate with us. As for the others, we have pushed and pulled them along to the best of our ability-a task which has formed no small addition to the war work of American

women.

When one thinks of it, the condition is inevitable. In our midst there are, unavoidably, many people who are really without a country. For there must be, as regards the immigrant and his children, a period when, although the love of their old country is weakened, their love of the new one has not become an instinct. They have come here to better themselves; in the greater number of cases to better their physical condition. These are not the days of the Pilgrim Fathers. The mass come to receive and not to give, and these people do not part easily from their flesh-pots. Nor have they, for the most part, advanced sufficiently in their education to see that the future security of those flesh-pots depends on present selfdenial. Whatever the dining-room might elect to do, just as long as wheat flour was to be had, the kitchen ate white bread. Many a mistress has despairingly declared that the saving which she could effect on

her own table has been as nothing compared with the amount consumed by the dogged greed of her servants. And, as every one knows, it is not only with domestic servants that this holds true. With the great rise in wages laborers in general have become given over to extravagance and luxury. The laborer of to-day is quite apt to go to his work in his own motor-car-and no Ford for him! For instance, at the meeting of the striking boiler-makers of the shipyards on San Francisco Bay-a strike which held up some fourteen thousand war-workers—the hall of assembly was surrounded by banks of motor-cars, the personal property of the strikers, a considerable number of these cars being of the sedan-chair pattern, which is certainly a particularly luxurious type.

We think that, little by little, conditions in our houses are improving. We have not pushed and pulled altogether in vain. Also there has been a certain amount of compul sion. If there is no wheat, not even the servants can eat it. They are obliged, instead, to learn how to make good war-bread. But then, too—and this is our encouragementthey are being educated. They are learning that food conservation is not an economical fad to save the mistress's pocket, and they are learning it faster since their own men are being sent abroad with our armies. In other ways they are willing to help: the maids have never been averse to knitting socks. The soldiers' cold feet they could understand better than the need of food conservation. Yet when the best has been done we cannot expect our laboring classes to be at one with us, as all classes are at one in France. People may change their ca tionality, but patriotism, the instinct to sacrifice oneself for one's country, doesn't grow in a day or in a generation. Acute obser ers tell us that when an old religion has bet uprooted no new one is likely to exercise the same power. Is it not the same with love of country? Can the second love command the soul?

Meantime, with the slackening of the fo of immigration we have a shortage of labor,