Angelica endured it stoically. She wouldn’t show even any interest. She listened to this talk of Vincent with rude inattention, and even went so far as to yawn. "He is wonderful," said Polly. "He’s organized a sort of club--the Friends of France--men that can’t go themselves, but pledge themselves to get recruits. He says the war has stirred his faith. I’m very glad. He’s doing wonderful work!" "Why don’t he enlist, like Mr. Eddie?" "My dear, he’d never serve under the British flag. Eddie’s in the Canadian service. Vincent’s Irish, you see." "Well, isn’t Mr. Eddie the same as he?" "Oh, yes, I suppose so; but he’s a different sort of Irishman." "Well, why don’t he serve under the French flag, then, if he’s so fond of it?" "He can do more good as he is. There are plenty of men who can fight, but there are very few who have Vincent’s wonderful eloquence." "He said he was crazy to go," said Angelica; "but I notice he doesn’t." "He’s married, too, you must remember," said Polly. "That makes a difference. Married men aren’t supposed to go till the very last." Their eyes met. "Take him!" said Angelica’s glance. "_I_ don’t care!" But after Polly had gone, she took out Vincent’s letter and read it again. She couldn’t understand it! She felt bruised, and weary, and sick at heart, and baffled. A letter like that, entreating her to come back to him, and, when she came, to find him on the best of terms with his wife and quite indifferent to her! "But perhaps later, when we’re alone," she thought, "he’ll say something." But all that day, and that evening, not a word, and the next day, too, until it grew plain to her that he didn’t intend to see her alone, that he was avoiding her. So the next morning she wrote a note and slipped it under his door: I want to see you. He made no sort of answer; he went on all day as if she didn’t exist; he wouldn’t even meet her eye. When he wasn’t going out in the motor to make speeches for the Friends of France, he was sitting in Polly’s room, telling her what he had said at the last meeting and what he was going to say at the next one. But Angelica was not to be disposed of so simply. She made up her mind that he would have to speak, he would have to tell her outright that he didn’t love her. "He won’t find it hard to get rid of me!" she thought, bitterly. "But he’s got to _say_. I want to understand. What does he write me a letter like that for, and then be this way?" She had a feeble little hope that perhaps it was only his feeling of duty that kept him from her, that he loved her and didn’t dare to see her. She felt that if he would just say that he loved her, but that they must give up all thought of each other, she would be satisfied. She could go on living, if she had that knowledge. _Something_, however, he must say.