"Oh, everything--the way we live, the people we know, the stupid things I am expected to do. It all seems so useless--so futile--so--so--such a waste of time." The Interpreter was studying her with kindly interest. "I never felt this way before brother went away. And during the war everybody was so much excited and interested, helping in every way he or she could. But now--now that it is over and John is safely home again, I can't seem to get back into the old ways at all. Life seems to have flattened out into a dull, monotonous round of nothing that really matters." The Interpreter spoke, thoughtfully, "Many people, I find, feel that way these days, Helen." "As for brother," she continued, "he is so changed that I simply can't understand him at all. He is like a different man--just grinds away in that dirty old Mill day after day, as if he were nothing more than a common laborer who had to work or starve. In fact," she finished with an air of triumph, "that is exactly what he says he is--simply a laborer like--like Charlie Martin and the rest of them." The Interpreter smiled. "It was all very well for John and Charlie Martin to be buddies, as they call it, during the war," she went on. "It was different over there in France. But now that it is all over and they are home again, and Captain Martin has gone back to his old work in the Mill where John has practically become the manager, there is no sense in brother's keeping up the intimacy. Really I don't wonder that father is worried almost to death over it all. I suppose the next thing John will be chumming with this Jake Vodell himself." "I don't suppose you see much of your old friends the Martins these days, do you, Helen?" said the old basket maker, reflectively. She retorted quickly with an air, "Certainly not." "But I remember, in the old-house days, before you went away to school, you and Charlie Martin were--" She interrupted him with "I was a silly child. I suppose every girl at about that age has to have her foolish little romance." And the Interpreter saw that her cheeks were crimson. "A young girl's first love is not in the least silly or foolish, my dear," he said. She made an effort to speak lightly. "Well, fortunately, mine did not last long." "I know," he returned, "but I thought perhaps because of the friendship between John and the Captain--" "I could scarcely see much of one of the common workmen in my father's mill, could I?" she asked, warmly. "I must admit, though," she added, with an odd note in her voice, "that I admire his good sense in never accepting John's invitations to the house." And then, suddenly, to the consternation of her companion, her eyes filled with tears. The Interpreter looked away toward the beautiful country beyond the squalid Plats, the busy city, the smoke-clouded Mill. There was a sound of some one knocking at the front door of the hut. Through the living room Helen saw her chauffeur. "Yes, Tom," she called, "I am coming."