"It's different with us. At least we've 'the mess' in common. I don't know whether you've tried to forget our--escapade. I haven't. It seems to me, when I think of it, an immensely solemn thing--a memory I want to treasure. Somehow out of our misery a sudden understanding and sympathy was born. I'm inclined to think it was the most fundamental, the most spontaneous and real thing that ever happened to me. I'd chatted with you half a dozen times, had had only one real talk with you back in New York. There in Paris, in two minutes--no, it was a matter of seconds--we knew each other better than--well--it's hard to say what I mean, because I'm not much of a mystic. But never before or since have I experienced a deeper feeling of nearness. Two years pass without a word exchanged, and, in a tawdry hotel parlor in London, with a string of people walking past the open doors, I find the same sudden understanding. "I don't need to tell you that there in London I wished the people were not walking past the door, that right now I wish your _bonne_ would disappear, so I could-- "But I don't want to talk about that. I'd like to get over something a lot deeper. It's this fundamental and immensely worth-while agreement and sympathy. "And just because I have this conviction of understanding, I'm sure you're lonely, too--just as lonely as I am. We both of us have a desire for 'the accustomed'--for Lares and Penates. Even an escapade as delightful as the last one wouldn't quite satisfy either of us any more. 'The Other Solution' is the big house in Oxford--with a work-room for you, a study for me, and the other rooms for us." He shook his shoulders as though to shrug off his seriousness. "You say you don't want to get married again. That's idiotic. Haven't you lived long enough to escape from fear of this 'marriage bond' bugaboo? With all your talk of emancipation, you're still as conventional as Mrs. Grundy. Marriage will save us from tiresome ructions with the neighbors, but as far as being afraid of the ceremony--why--I'd just as lief marry a person as lend her ten dollars. "Where does the _Maire_ live? I'll go down and tell him to dust his tricolor sash." "No." "B., _il faut de l'audace_." "It would be foolish after Paris." "_Et encore de l'audace_--" "Besides I've leased this cottage for two years." "_Et toujours de l'audace._" "Well," she said, "if you're as flippant about it as all that, I don't suppose it matters much." CHAPTER XXX EVALUATION The first two years on _The Clarion_ were a desperate struggle for Yetta. But after all, struggle is the surest sign of life. To herself she seemed dead. The collapse of her romance had left a hollow place in her spirit, which could not be filled by work--not even the frenzy of work by which each issue of _The Clarion_ was achieved. But all this time life was gathering force within her, preparing to assert itself once more.