"You don't know what Charlotte thinks," said Raven succinctly. "She's got a pretty accurate idea of all of us. You're not going to stay here. That's flat. We'll blow out the candles in a minute or two and poke off home." "This is home," said Nan and rubbed her cheek on his coat. "Darling Rookie!" "You're running away from Milly," said Raven. "That's all right. I wish I could myself. But what are you going to say when she finds the house is open and you're here? I found it out and so can she. I was going by and saw the light." "She won't go by and see the light," said Nan, from the same far distance. "Consider those pumps. She won't go out. If she does, you must just take her the other way. Head her off, Rookie, that's what you do, head her off." "Do you know, Nan," said Raven, with a sudden resolution, "what Dick feels about you: I mean, what makes him so sore and ugly? He told me." (There was a slight disturbance on his shoulder. Nan seemed to be shaking her head.) "He apparently can't get at you. There's something in you that baffles him, puts him off. It makes him mad as thunder. You won't let him in, Nan. You don't let him see you as you are." "Why, Rookie!" said Nan. She sat up straight and looked him in the face. Her eyes were beautifully calm. If her clinging to him was against the rules of this present life, nothing in her expression showed it. She was really like a child used to being loved and innocently demanding it. "Why, Rookie, Dick's not more than half grown up." "He writes," said Raven obstinately, aware of having really no argument. "What kinds of books? Conventional rot. Verse. Anybody could do it by the yard. No, you needn't look like that. 'Course I couldn't! But anybody that could write at all. You could, Rookie, only you wouldn't have the face. You'd feel such a fool." "Of course it's conventional," said Raven, "his poetry is. But that's natural enough. He belongs to the new school. You don't find him conventional himself, do you? Too conventional?"