Three days went by. Lindsay's nights were so broken that he took long naps in the afternoon. His days had turned into periods of idle revery. The letter to Spink Sparrel was still unfinished. He worked spasmodically at his typewriter: but he completed nothing. The third night he started toward the Rochambeau with the intention of getting a room. But halfway across the Park, he stopped and retraced his steps. "I can't let you beat me!" he muttered audibly, after he arrived in the empty apartment. It did not beat him that night; for he stayed in the apartment until dawn broke. But from midnight on, he lay with every light in the place going. At sunrise, he dressed and went out for a walk. And the moment the sounds of everyday life began to humanize the neighborhood, he returned; sat down to his machine. "Spink, old dear, my mind is made up. I accept! I'll do Lutetia for you; and, by God, I'll do her well! I'm starting for Boston tomorrow night on the midnight. I'll call at the office about noon and we'll go to luncheon together. I'll dig out my thesis and books from storage, and if you'll get all your dope and data together, I can go right to it. I'm going to Quinanog tomorrow afternoon. I need a change. Everybody here makes me tired. The pacifists make me wild and the militarists make me wilder. Civilians is nuts when it comes to a war. The only person I can talk about it with is somebody who's been there. And anybody who's been there has the good sense not to want to talk about it. I don't ever want to hear of that war again. Personally, I, David Lindsay, meaning me, want to swing in a hammock on a pleasant, cool, vine-hung piazza; read Lutetia at intervals and write some little pieces subsequent. Yours, David." II Susannah Ayer dragged herself out of her sleepless night and started to get up. But halfway through her first rising motion, something seemed to leave her--to leave her spirit rather than her body. She collapsed in a droop-shouldered huddle onto the bed. Her red hair had come out of its thick braids; it streamed forward over her white face; streaked her nightgown with glowing strands. She pushed it out of her eyes and sat for a long interval with her face in her hands. Finally she rose and went to the dresser. Haggardly she stared into the glass at her reflection, and haggardly her reflection stared back at her. "I don't wonder you look different, Glorious Susie," she addressed herself wordlessly, "because you _are_ different. I wonder if you can ever wash away that experience--" She poured water into the basin until it almost brimmed; and dropped her face into it. After her sponge bath, she contemplated herself again in the glass. Some color had crept into the pearly whiteness of her cheek. Her dark-fringed eyes seemed a little less shadow-encircled. She turned their turquoise glance to the picture of a woman--a miniature painted on ivory--which hung beside the dresser.