“Because, Pat”—he spoke slowly, fumbling for words—“a man’s got no right to marry a woman and have children if he can’t look after them. Two years ago, we had three thousand a year; today, we’ll be lucky if we’ve got six hundred. That’s failure, Pat. And you know what I think of failure.” She remembered a similar conversation, long ago, at the Carlton. “It isn’t your fault,” she said stubbornly. “And besides”—her voice grew very gentle—-“lots of people are very happy on six hundred a year.” “In books,” he sneered. “Peter”—she looked at him and he saw her eyes suffuse—“that _hurts_.” The sudden change in her dumbfounded him. Always, they had talked openly, as man to man. Now, he knew instinctively that he must finesse. And he hated finesse—even in commerce. Yet he was sorry to have hurt her; told her so; tried to explain. “It’s all right for some people, Pat. But it wouldn’t suit us. Imagine us living in a place like ‘The Limes.’ . . .” Thought Patricia, “He’s been home half a day and he hasn’t even kissed me yet!” Nevertheless, she pulled herself together. He had come home “on business”; and he must be allowed to settle his business in his own way. He looked thinner, she thought: and it seemed to her a shame that he should be worried with money-matters when his real work lay elsewhere, at the front. She let him talk himself into optimism; admired the ultimate philosophy with which he said: “Anyway, it’s only temporary. One doesn’t alter a deal by talking round it. Jamesons will have to go. Let it! Once this war’s over, I’ll get into business again. And then, then, my dear, you’ll see me make things hum.” He paid for tea; insisted on driving home himself. They spun out of twilit country into the blueing gloom of war-time London; made Harley Street in time for dinner. The children, who had waited up for his return, greeted their father uproariously; could hardly be induced to bed. Later Heron Baynet produced Clicquot, a decanter of special brandy. The three of them made semblance of enjoyment. Peter told them how he had wangled his leave; Patricia broached a plan long contemplated—the taking of a little place in the country; her father spoke, as always, of his work. The little consultant with the lined face and the kind eyes was one of the only three men in England who had made any study of war’s effect on the fighting man’s nerves. Already, in the card-index on the table in his consulting-room, he had tabulated five hundred cases; and from those five hundred cases, a theory had begun to evolve itself—a theory of eminent simplicity. Heron Baynet called it, “The Curve of the Limit of Human Endurance.”