"I couldn't help it," she said. "I thought of Dick, your telling him. Dick's just got his book ready for the printer: Democracy, you know, in three-legged verse. And they'll say it's full of insight and prophecy. That's what they said about the other one: insight, prophecy! But Dick won't have the least idea what you're driving at." "You see," said Raven, "he's thinking of doing some stiff work and getting a degree: a sort of sop to his mother. She's as wild as a hawk, you know, to get him to distinguish himself, doesn't much care how. I'd meant to ask him to camp here with me this winter. I believe I did actually ask him, now I think of it." "Yes, you did," said Nan. "It'll make a lot of difference to him, your being away." "I don't think so," said Raven. "Anyhow, he'll have to get used to it, especially as I'm not merely going away. I'm getting out, out of the business and all." He was really surprising her now. She had grown up in the atmosphere of belief in that particular business. When a Hamilton said his earthly creed, he would have begun, if he had been honest, "I believe in wool." "You're not retiring?" she hesitated. "Yes." "Made your pile, Rookie?" At once they thought of Anne and the new complication she had saddled him with. "That isn't the question," he evaded. "The amount of it is, I couldn't go to the office every morning and come home and go the next day, without--well, Nan, frankly, going off my nut. I hate it. I hate the whole business of what we call civilized life. I even think of giving Dick power of attorney and passing all my stuff over into his hands." "Oh, no," said Nan quickly, "you mustn't do that." He frowned at her, perplexedly. "Don't you trust him?" he asked. "Don't you trust Dick?" "Of course I trust Dick," said she impatiently, "his intentions, that is." "You ought to," said Raven. "You're bound to, the man you're going to marry." She kept her eyes on him, but she said nothing. And suddenly Raven realized that he wanted to know about this business of marrying Dick. He wanted to know tremendously. Yet, though this was the little Nan who sometimes used to seem more his child than anybody's, he could not ask her. She looked difficult, if not wayward. "Well," he compromised, "that's about where it is. I'm going into the country, to get away from the clack of men. My income, all but the little of it I set aside for food and taxes, will go to France. It may go through Dick or it may----Oh, well, well," he added, seeing the quick rebuttal again on her face, "that hasn't got to be decided in a hurry. But ultimately it goes to France." "Why France?" asked Nan. "I see, though. They're all deserting her."