Mrs. Lawrence never talked about her husband, but in this reticence she was not joined by Rose Dawn or Jennie Cassavant. Jennie maintained that the misfitted Mr. Lawrence was alive, very much so; that Esther and he weren't even divorced, but merely separated. The only sanction Mrs. Lawrence ever gave to this report was to blurt out one night: "Keep up your belief in the mysticism of love and all that kind of sentimental sex stuff as long as you can. You'll lose it some day fast enough. Me, I know that a woman needs a man just the same as a man needs a woman--and just as darned unpoetically. Being brought up a Puritan, I never can quite get over the feeling that I oughtn't to have anything to do with men--me as I am--but believe me it isn't any romantic ideal. I sure want 'em." Mrs. Lawrence continually went to dinners and theaters with men; she told Una all the details, as women do, from the first highly proper handshake down in the pure-minded hall of the Home Club at eight, to the less proper good-night kiss on the dark door-step of the Home Club at midnight. But she was careful to make clear that one kiss was all she ever allowed, though she grew dithyrambic over the charming, lonely men with whom she played--a young doctor whose wife was in a madhouse; a clever, restrained, unhappy old broker. Once she broke out: "Hang it! I want love, and that's all there is to it--that's crudely all there ever is to it with any woman, no matter how much she pretends to be satisfied with mourning the dead or caring for children, or swatting a job or being religious or anything else. I'm a low-brow; I can't give you the economics of it and the spiritual brotherhood and all that stuff, like Mamie Magen. But I know women want a man and love--all of it." Next evening she took Una to dinner at a German restaurant, as chaperon to herself and a quiet, insistent, staring, good-looking man of forty. While Mrs. Lawrence and the man talked about the opera, their eyes seemed to be defying each other. Una felt that she was not wanted. When the man spoke hesitatingly of a cabaret, Una made excuse to go home. Mrs. Lawrence did not return till two. She moved about the room quietly, but Una awoke. "I'm _glad_ I went with him," Mrs. Lawrence said, angrily, as though she were defending herself. Una asked no questions, but her good little heart was afraid. Though she retained her joy in Mrs. Lawrence's willingness to take her and her job seriously, Una was dismayed by Mrs. Lawrence's fiercely uneasy interest in men.... She resented the insinuation that the sharp, unexpected longing to feel Walter's arms about her might be only a crude physical need for a man, instead of a mystic fidelity to her lost love.