"No! No! No! I hate it all as you hated it. If you want to punish me terribly--for saying something I didn't mean--just talk them to me. I want wideness, must have it! Room! I--I could say it in music better than in words. Some day I shall compose a song that says it for me--the--the way I feel it. Don't stop now saving me from them. Wait. Wait, Lilly, until I sing. Trieste understands even better than you. I'm the surprise he keeps hinting about to everyone. I'm going to bowl them over at my audition. Lilly--have I ever failed you? Have I ever come in second for you? No, and I never will. You won't ever be sorry, Lilly--on my account. You won't even care that I've cut off my hair. Lilly dear, do you believe me? I'm always going to come in first for you. First!" "I do, dear, I do." And of course in the end they sobbed together, and lay far into the dawn, cheek to cheek, until finally Zoe dropped off to sleep and Lilly lay wide-eyed beside her, the perfume of her child's soft breathing against her cheek. The next morning in the reading room of the Public Library a notice catapulted itself at Lilly from the second page of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat: L.H. Hines, president, and Albert Penny, vice president of Slocum-Hines Hardware Company, leave shortly for Washington, where they have been called to give expert advice upon installing American Canteen Service. CHAPTER VII The day that followed seemed to Lilly vague with a sort of fog. A disturbing something lay against her consciousness and one of her unquiet nights was filled with the unaccountable crying. But morning invariably brought back reality and her workaday could envelop her busily, even happily. Meanwhile, war, like a spreading wing, had blackened against the international sky. Somme, Vimy Ridge, Aisne had been bled, and more than ever the streets that led toward the embarkation points were the color of khaki, women frequently running alongside, crying and laughing bewildered farewells. Some of this war hysteria, of which she was really no integral part, had, however, hold of Lilly. Her throat ached with it. Her state cropped out in her work. One afternoon she traveled to Newark for the purpose of seeing a Japanese sleight-of-hand act, and came away without sufficient impression of any kind to pass judgment. Bruce Visigoth eyed her closely. "You're tired," he said, commenting upon her failure to turn in the report. "You need a rest." "No," she said, "it's just--a little of everything--I guess--then Harry Calvert--that was a shock, you see, and now his grandmother. I'm with her at the hospital every evening--and then this war--this futile bleeding--horror." He could never, with her, keep his tone as level as his manner.