"Now are you satisfied, dear?" Sue asked. But Eleanore smiled and shook her head. "Is Mrs. Marsh a radical, too--I mean an agitator?" she asked. Joe's face had clouded a little. "Not exactly," he replied. Eleanore's eyes were attentive now: "Do you know her well, Joe?" "I've met her----" "I'd like to meet her, too," she said. "And find out how she likes her life." "I think I know what you'd find," said Sue, in her old cocksure, superior manner. "I guess she likes it well enough----" "Still, dear," Eleanore murmured, "instead of taking things for granted it would be interesting, I think, in all this talk to have one look at a little real life." "Aren't you just a little afraid of real life, Eleanore?" Sue demanded, in a quick challenging tone. "Am I?" asked Eleanore placidly. * * * * * Long after Joe had left us, Sue kept up that challenging tone. But she did not speak to Eleanore now, her talk like Joe's was aimed at me. "Why not think it over, Billy?" she urged. "You're not happy now, I never saw you so worried and blue." "I'm not in the least!" I said stoutly. But Sue did not seem to hear me. She went on in an eager, absorbed sort of way: "Why not try it a little? You needn't go as far as Joe Kramer. He may even learn to go slower himself--now that he has had typhoid----" "Do you think so?" Eleanore put in. "Why not?" cried Sue impatiently. "If he keeps on at this pace it will kill him! Has he no right to some joy in life? Why should you two have it all? Just think of it, Billy, you have a name, success and a lot of power! Why not use it here? Suppose it is harder! Oh, I get so out of patience with myself and all of us! Our easy, lazy, soft little lives! Why can't we _give_ ourselves a little?" And she went back over all Joe had said. "It's all so real. So tremendously real," she ended. * * * * * "I wonder what's going to happen," said Eleanore when we were alone. "God knows," I answered gloomily. That hammering from Joe and Sue had stirred me up all over again. I had doggedly resisted, I had told Sue almost angrily that I meant to keep right on as before. But now she was gone, I was not so sure. "I still feel certain Joe's all wrong," I said aloud. "But he and his kind are so dead in earnest--so ready for any sacrifice to push their utterly wild ideas--that they may get a lot of power. God help the country if they do." "I wasn't speaking of the country, my love," my wife informed me cheerfully. "I was speaking of Sue and Joe Kramer." "Joe," I replied, "will slam right ahead. You can be sure of that, I've got him down cold." "Have you?" she asked. "And how about Sue?" "Oh Sue," I replied indifferently, "has been enthused so many times." "Billy." I turned and saw my wife regarding her husband thoughtfully. "I wonder," she said, "how long it will be before you can write a love story." "What?" "Sue and Joe Kramer, you idiot." I stared at her dumfounded.