There was a certain tired tenderness in her thinking of him. Dear Stuart, he loved easy pleasant living. It seemed he was not meant for the too great tests, for tragically isolated love. She knew that he had never ceased to miss the things he had let go--his place among men, the stimulus of the light, pleasant social relationships with women. He was meant for a love more flexibly related to living, a love big and real but fitted more loosely, a little more carelessly, to life. There was always so deep a contrition for his irritations with her. The whole trouble was indicated right there, that the contrition should be all out of proportion to the offence. It would have been better had he felt more free to be irritated; one should not have to feel frightened at a little bit of one's own bad temper--appalled at crossness, at hours of ennui. Driving them back together after every drifting apart all of that made for an intensity of passion--passion whipped to life by fear. But that was not the way to grow into life. Flames kindled by fear made intense moments but after a time left too many waste places between them and the lives of men. Today her hope for the future was in the opening of new places. She was going back with new vision, new courage. They must not any longer cling together in their one little place, coming finally to actual resentment of one another for the enforced isolation. They must let themselves go out into living, dare more, trust more, lose that fear of rebuff, hope for more from life, _claim_ more. As she rose and started towards home there was a new spring in her step. For her part, she was through with that shrinking back! She hoped she could bring Stuart to share her feeling, could inspire in him this new trust, new courage that had so stimulated and heartened her. Her hope for their future lay there.