And she was. She was expecting us in that kind of agitation which hides itself under a pretense of being more than usually cool. In sympathy with Lovey’s memory, I suppose, she was dressed in black, which made a foil for her vivid lips and eyes. Out of the latter she was unable to keep a shade of feverish brightness that belied the nonchalance of her greeting. She talked about Lovey, about the funeral, about the weather, about the declaration of war, about the men in khaki who with such surprising promptness had begun to appear in the streets. She talked rapidly, anxiously, against time, as it were, and busied herself pouring tea. Suspecting, doubtless, that Cantyre had something special to say, she was trying to fight him off from it as long as possible. I had taken a seat; he remained standing, his back to the fire. His look was abstracted, thundery, morose. Right in the middle of what Regina was saying about the seizure of the German ships he dropped with the remark, “You two know what Lovey told me—what he’s been telling me ever since you both came home.” Neither of us had a word to say. We could only stare. You could hear the mantelpiece clock ticking before he went on again. “Well, I’m not going to give you up, Regina,” he declared, aggressively, then. One of her hands was on the handle of the teapot; one was in the act of taking up a cup. If coloring was ever transmuted into flame, her coloring was at that moment. There was a dramatic intensity in her quietness. “Have I asked you to, Stephen?” “No; but—” “Have I?” I demanded. “No; but—” “If Lovey did it it was without any knowledge of mine,” I continued. “I practically killed him, God forgive me, for doing it!” “You’re both off the track,” Cantyre broke in. “You don’t know what I—what I want to say.” “Very well, then, Stephen. Tell us,” Regina said, tranquilly. He spoke stammeringly. “It’s—it’s—just this: This is no time—for—for—love.” We stared again, waiting for him to go on. “It’s what—what Christian told us two or three nights ago. We’re in a world where—where love and marriage are no longer the burning questions. They’re too small. Don’t you see?” We continued to stare, but we agreed with him. “So—so,” he faltered, “I want you—I want you both—to—to put it all off.” “The moratorium of love?” I suggested. “The moratorium of everything,” he took up, “but what—what Christian put before us. I see that now more plainly than I ever saw anything in my life. We’ve got to give everything up—and get it back—different. We shall be different, too—and things that we’re struggling over now will be settled for us, I suppose, without our taking them into our own hands at all. That’s how I look at it, if you two will agree.” “I agree, Stephen,” Regina said, with the same tranquillity. “And I, too, old chap.” “I’m—I’m going over,” he stumbled on, “with the first medical unit from Columbia—” “Oh, Stephen! How splendid!”