With melting eyes Constance shook her head. "You don't deserve to hear it," she replied. Her tears came: "My little sister, I'm on the man's side in this affair!" "That's not good of you," murmured Anna. "I don't claim to be good. But there's one thing, Nan Callender, I never did; I never chained up my lover to see if he'd stay chained. When Steve--" "Oh-h! Oh-h!" panted Anna, "you're too cruel! Hilary Kincaid wears no chain of mine!" "Oh, yes, he does! He's broken away, but he's broken away, chain and all, to starve and perish, as one look into his face would show you!" "He doesn't show his face. He sends--" "An explanation. Yes. Which first you scorn and then consent to hear." "Don't scorn _me_, Connie. What's the explanation?" "It's this: he's been sent back to those Mobile fortifications--received the order barely in time to catch the boat by going instantly. Nan, the Valcours' house is found to stand right on their proposed line, and he's gone to decide whether the line may be changed or the house must be demolished." Anna rose, twined an arm in her sister's and with her paced the chamber. "How perfectly terrible!" she murmured, their steps ceasing and her eyes remote in meditation. "Poor Flora! Oh, the poor old lady! And oh, oh, poor Flora!--But, Con! The line will be changed! He--you know what the boys call him!" "Yes, but there's the trouble. He's no one lady's man. Like Steve, he's so absolutely fair--" "Connie, I tell you it's a strange line he won't change for Flora Valcour!" "Now, Nan Callender! The line will go where it ought to go. By the by, Charlie says neither Flora nor her grandmother knows the house is in danger. Of course, if it is harmed, the harm will be paid for." "Oh, paid for!" "Why, Nan, I'm as sorry for them as you. But _I_ don't forget to be sorry for Hilary Kincaid too." "Connie"--walk resumed, speaker's eyes on the floor--"if you'd only see that to me he's merely very interesting--entertaining--nothing more whatever--I'd like to say just a word about him." "Say on, precious." "Well--did you ever see a man so fond of men?" "Oh, of course he is, or men wouldn't be so fond of him." "_I_ think he's fonder of men than of women!" Constance smiled: "Do you?" "And I think," persisted Anna, "the reason some women find him so agreeable is that our collective society is all he asks of us, or ever will ask." "Nan Callender, look me in the eye! You can't! My little sister, you've got a lot more sense than I have, and you know it, but I can tell you one thing. When Steve and I--" "Oh, Connie, dear--nothing--go on." "I won't! Except to say some lovers take love easy and some--can't. I must go back to Charlie. I know, Nan, it's those who love hardest that take love hardest, and I suppose it's born in Hilary Kincaid, and it's born in you, to fight it as you'd fight fire. But, oh, in these strange times, don't do it! Don't do it. You're going to have trouble a-plenty without."