“You have seen fame-madness and vanity-madness and lonesome-madness and even temper-madness in me,” Thurley confessed, “but this war-madness, this way of leaving houses undusted and babies unkissed—like Lorraine—” Ali Baba left the cultivator to come forward. His blue eyes were keen with indignation. “Thurley,” he said, “God bless our women that work and pray for the boys, but I’m gosh-hanged sick of these critters chasing around day and night trying their best to get changed into these here semi-monjays!” CHAPTER XXXV When it was time for Thurley to go to New York, Miss Clergy intimated that she would spend the winter at the Fincherie, while the Corners said Thurley had returned “to get cured of something,” because she had stayed so at home and the only person in whom she expressed an interest had been Dan Birge’s son. “Oh, no, you must see me in my new opera. I’d be lonesome for you—” “Lonesome for the baby,” Miss Clergy corrected, smiling. “There are dozens of people you can have with you, Thurley—and I’m tired.” So Thurley packed her trunks and told Ali Baba to call her back if Miss Clergy seemed even inclined to want her. The day before she was to leave, she wandered along the shore of the lake, looking at the deserted mansions with a perplexed and disapproving air. She had found much of which to disapprove in the Corners. It was the queer war-madness in such as Lorraine and her following, destroying common sense and blinding their eyes. When this restless army returned, whether from overseas or from home service, for return they must, what then of the readjustment? The quiet tragedies that would be lived down slowly, so unsuspectedly—so bravely, really. After every one in the home town had heard their stories and their pictures had been locally printed—what then? They would assume the old jobs, the maddening procedure of “Good morning, help,” and “Good morning, boss”—the white shirtwaist on Monday and the pink one on Thursday and the dark silk for best because it is serviceable; the hall bedroom with the respectable family who are always asleep by ten o’clock, the ending of dreams, the failure of the quest, the defeating admission that the circle and not the cross is life’s truest symbol. Surely these people would turn in protest to art as their solace. What a task America had set for her, what herculean effort Bliss must make ... for these people would appeal to the accepted standards of art as their defense. The plays, poems, stories, songs, pictures, useless bohemian lives that would follow if permitted, the refusal to become one of many—to take an interest in the neighbors and not the enemies!