It occurred to her that if Hobart’s vision could have been realized before this crisis what a mightier, more direct influence true art would have in rousing the commoner. For it would be an art of spiritual sincerity and no one would be forced to discriminate among a myriad of near-art wares and mercenary efforts in patriotic guise. The peasant whose taste for opera and pictures is unsullied until he mingles with the conglomeration which this over-generous nation offers is to be preferred! And afterwards, Thurley thought,—strangely enough, when peace had come—would the vanguard of art be brave enough to banish forever the surplus wares, false standards and begin anew?—for these swashbuckling profiteers would be loath to cry quits. CHAPTER XXXII An hour later Thurley discovered herself in bed, a doctor watching her and Miss Clergy in the doorway, her face gray with apprehension. A nurse whispered she had fainted while standing at the window; that there was no need for alarm. The doctor added that she had brain fag, nothing serious if she would go away to some place where she could be pulled together. After more suave remarks and those little sugar-coated pellets left behind, he departed and Thurley sent the nurse and Miss Clergy away, tossing restlessly and wondering if she could make them understand that she would not go to a milk-fed sanitarium where nurses sneaked about in rubber-heeled shoes and one had to exclaim over sunsets with the other patients, to say nothing of bulletlike little biscuits and health foods and the talk on “Iceland Moss” given by a convalescent missionary! When a wild rose tries to become a hothouse variety there is certain, some time during the transition, to be a bad scratching of thorns which was all that ailed Thurley. In the morning Bliss Hobart dropped in to see her and Thurley brightened so visibly that the nurse left the room, grinning superciliously. “Bother opera things,” Bliss said. “I’m really glad you fainted yesterday; you fainted enough for me, too, didn’t you? I was just considering getting up on top of Grant’s Tomb and dancing a Highland fling—masculine form of nerve fag.... I say, Thurley, do you know you’re coming with me to my hermitage? I’m leaving to-night and we’re to bully Miss Clergy into being chaperone.” Here they both laughed at each other like children and the pellets almost lost the sugar coating in wrath at the small part they played in curing this wild rose person! “Oh, yes, you are coming. I was just leaving for Blessed Memory myself when they told me you were ill. A month there will set you right.” “You mean the place you disappear to—” “And Lissa hints of a harem, a dope den, a gambling lair and what not? Yes, ma’am, Blessed Memory is its name. You’ll be there this time to-morrow. Remember, rouge boxes and high heels not admitted.”