"Oh, these complications--they don't exist! We just make 'em, like we make rules for a card game. What the deuce do we care about the opinions of people we don't like? And who appointed these people to a fixed social position? Did the president make Saxton High Cockalorum of Dress-Suits or something? Why, these are just folks, the same as kings and coal-heavers. There's no army we've got to fight. There's just you and me--you and I--and if we stick together, then we have all society, we _are_ all society!" "Ye-es, but, Milt dear, I don't want to be an outcast." "You won't be. In the long run, if you don't take these aristocrats seriously, they'll be all the more impressed by you." "No. That sounds cheering, in stories and these optimistic editorials in the magazines, but it isn't true. And you don't know how pleasant it is to be In. I've always been more or less on the inside, and thought outsiders dreadful. But---- Oh, I don't care! I don't care! With you--I'm happy. That's all I know and all I want to know. I've just grown up. I've just learned the greatest wisdom--to know when I'm happy. But, Milt dear---- I say this because I love you. Yes, I do love you. No, don't kiss me. Yes, it is too---- It's _far_ too public. And I want to talk seriously. You can't have any idea how strong social distinctions are. Don't despise them just because you don't know them." "No. I won't. I'll learn. Probably America will get into the war. I'll be an engineering officer. I'll learn this social dope from the college-boy officers. And I'll come to Brooklyn with shoulder-straps and bells on and---- Will you be waiting?" "Oh--yes---- But, Milt! If the war comes, you must be very careful not to get shot!" "All right, if, you insist. Good Lord, Claire. I don't know what put it into my head but---- Do you realize that a miracle has happened? We're no longer Miss Boltwood and a fellow named Daggett. We have been, even when we've liked each other, up to today. Always there's been a kind of fence between us. We had to explain and defend ourselves and scrap---- But now we're _us_, and the rest of the world has disappeared, and----" "And nothing else matters," said Claire. CHAPTER XXXIV THE BEGINNING OF A STORY It was the farewell to Claire and Jeff Saxton, a picnic in the Cascades, near Snoqualmie Falls--a decent and decidedly Milt-less fiesta. Mrs. Gilson was going to show Claire that they were just as hardy adventurers as that horrid Daggett person. So she didn't take the limousine, but merely the seven-passenger Locomobile with the special body.