"Why?" Helen rumpled her hair with swift hand. "There'd be a frightful fight. You see, Lady Rachel"--plaintively--"whenever I fight with Morgan I get so--so smashed. Don't you know, it makes your bones sore, and gives you a headache. Besides, Morgan always does what he means to do, and he knows all sorts of things, and if he means to marry me I suppose he will, and I suppose he knows--well, whether I love him or not. 'My word!' says Uncle Tad, 'I don't.'" "Don't what?" "Don't know, Lady Rachel. Suppose I said 'Morgan Map, I don't love you, there!' then he'd say, 'You do, too,' or else, 'That's my lookout,' or something, and what would I do then? Oh, yes, I'd say, 'Well, then, I won't marry you,' and he'd say, 'Much you know about it,' or if he was cross there'd be a fight, and I never get anything out of that. Isn't it funny, Uncle Tad doesn't like Morgan at all." "I don't think," said Mrs. Mavering, slowly, "that I do, either, but it looks as if I ought not to say so. Do you mind?" "Of course not. Morgan doesn't care who dislikes him, except me; and if I did, don't you see, it would be only one of the words in the dictionary." "I think I begin to see. But I'm still wondering if there isn't one word left out." "Why--But I don't know what you mean. What makes you so solemn, Lady Rachel? You bother and bother about Morgan, and he's not so worth while, not so--around in the dark as Gard Windham, who says things out of the middle of himself without talking at all, and you understand him, you don't know how, and it makes your hair tingle. Lady Rachel, listen! Let's go to the war." "The war!" "Didn't you know there is to be one? And Morgan's going to be a captain, or colonel, or something. He wouldn't let me, but we'd wait till he was gone, and then I'd only have to fight with Uncle Tad, and I wouldn't mind that." Mrs. Mavering fell to wondering if there had ever been a time when she was like this herself, as bright and fearless; as little conscious or afraid of looming shadows. She thought she had not been quite like this. There must have been less will and more desire of ease. She thought she had loved a better man than Morgan Map, at least one more varied and peculiar, if not so poised and secure of himself; a strange man, restless and reckless. The two did not look alike; Jack was dark, long-jawed, and lean; but when she had noted Morgan knitting his yellow brows, and imagined there was an odd glint in his eyes, she had thought of one of Jack's moods, and shivered. Jack was never jealous. But there was some mark, something common to them both, that sent a searching chill, that seemed like a denial of all close comforts and small loving things. Or was it only her own weakness and fanciful fears, born of those past times when she had learned to be afraid of the next day?