At the same time it is the worst possible governing principle not to vary your tears with laughter, tyranny and some sort of lovely unreasonableness. Men cannot endure a perfectly logical and sane woman. She is too much like a petticoated edition of themselves. They want action. You must keep your ball rolling, you must convince your husband of your mental inferiority and of your tender superiority. Helen, poor girl, was not that much smarter than her husband. She was straight. She lacked the dearer deviousness of her sex, and, within her limits, was utterly all to the good. Whether a state of unmitigated morality is profitable is a thing I have always wanted to know. And in the course of a long life, the only answer I have ever been able to find is that any state bordering on immorality, or unmoralness, is sure to prove unprofitable. The difference between these two equations offered the only light at the time on Helen’s future. CHAPTER XIV In April of 1917 this country joined the Allies in the Great War. The nation was transfigured with that spiritual and sacrificial emotion which invariably follows the sending of vast armies of men to be slain. The profits on patriotism were enormous for those who knew how to do business at the expense of the people. Cutter was one of these eminently sane profiteers. He had doubled his fortune during the first few months. He remained in New York most of the time. He had been away from home the whole of July. One morning early in August he arrived at the door of his own house in Shannon. Helen had not expected him. She was flustered. Breakfast had been served, but she would have another breakfast prepared at once. No, George explained briefly, he had had something on the train; she was not to trouble herself on his account. This consideration was unusual. Well, he must go in and lie down; she knew he must be worn out, Helen suggested. No, he was not tired; and no, he would not go in and lie down. He behaved like a visitor in the house. But he remained at home all day, puttering about the house and garden with a curious gentle air. After lunch he took a nap on the sofa in the parlor. To Helen’s question as to whether he would go out for some golf as usual, he had replied that he would not play golf and that she might have an early dinner. Afterwards she remembered a faint embarrassment in his manner during the whole of this day, as if it were an effort to talk or reveal the simplest word of himself. But at the time Helen was pleased without questioning why he was behaving in this vaguely domestic fashion. Late in the afternoon she had followed him into the garden, seated herself on a bench there with her hands folded--merely present, you understand. Cutter continued to pace slowly back and forth along the walk. Helen observed him gently. She thought he looked spent. She was glad he was taking the day off; this was all she thought about that.