'Ah, I see it: you will be a second Max--all science, all absence, and a woman waiting at home! Immolation, you call it?' she continued, her hands moving quickly among the appurtenances of the tea-table. 'That is what you prefer, my young Mr. Noakes.' 'I am under orders, you know, Mrs. Max,' said Noakes, with a deferential inclination of the head toward Maxineff. A servant brought in buttered rusks, and served the men with tea. 'Orders! For orders do you permit circles about your eyes as dark as they themselves are? Then you are easily immolate!' Over his cup Maxineff smiled encouragement to his wife. 'You are practical, my friend. Confess now, there is a reason for your--your application?' Noakes's attitude was uncompromising. He placed his cup on the table before he spoke. 'The reason you are thinking of, Mrs. Max, is not for a poor man.' Mrs. Maxineff lifted her shoulders and displayed her palms in a manner that marked her nationality. 'So! Science has made your dark skin white; love for this business of killing men has kept you hid a week.' 'Of saving men,' Maxineff corrected, while his wife smiled as at the recurrence of a customary witticism. 'And you gave the orders, Max! You are to be blamed for this display of energy.' 'Don't scold, dear. It will be a wonderful thing!' 'A new explosive?' she interrupted. 'Do you remember the day we motored from Stoneham? I first thought of it then. I have been too busy to work on it, so I turned the idea over to Noakes.' 'And I have made application to a home for the feeble-minded, Mrs. Max,' Noakes said. 'Mr. Max will never commission me again.' 'I'll be with you to-morrow, and we shall see wherein is the difficulty.' 'But, Max, another? Now I see your scheme of universal peace quite puffed away!' 'This will bring it nearer!' Maxineff said enthusiastically. Mrs. Maxineff shrugged her shoulders as she walked toward the long windows. 'Stay to dinner, will you?' she said to Noakes. 'Thanks, but I couldn't with propriety. I forgot to have luncheon to-day, and your tea has given me a keen anticipation for dinner; my zest would be embarrassing to you, and past my control. Besides, I shall take a half-mile walk to-night.' 'Lucky Becky! Then come again soon. Max, dear,' she said, turning to her husband, 'I cannot hear that again. I shall be on the porch.' When she passed through the window, Noakes seated himself to listen to a new exposition of the subject which chiefly aroused Maxineff's interest and loosed his speech. Frequently he bent his head in acquiescence, and occasionally interjected a pertinent question under the guidance of his secondary mind; but his thoughts moved in a circle of smaller radius. What to him was a policy of world-peace? He cared not a jot what scheme of universal pacification men dreamed over. Maxineff's argument was not new to him; when he gave it serious attention he doubted its practicability.