“It seems to me,” he went on, “that I spent my life flying from what I thought was ugly. I always refused to face realities, Mary, unless they were pleasant. I fled even from the great reality of our marriage because it meant responsibilities and monotony, and they seemed ugly things to me. And now, Mary,” he smiled, “now that I can never shoulder responsibilities again, and am condemned to lifelong monotony”--she pressed his hand--“neither seems ugly any more. The truth is, I thought I fled to get away from things, and it was really to get away from myself. Now that I've seen such horrors, such awful suffering, and such unbelievable sacrifice, I have something to think about so much more real than my vain, egotistical self. I know what my work is now, something much better than just creating beauty. I gave my body to France--that was nothing. But now I have to give her my soul--I have to try and make it a voice to tell the world a little of what she has done. Am I too vain, dearest, in thinking that these really say something big?” He nodded toward his first five drawings, which hung in a row on the wall. “Oh, Stefan, you know what I think of them,” she said, her eyes shining. “Would you mind pinning up the new one, Mary, so that we can see them all together?” She rose and, unfastening the drawing from its board, pinned it beside the others. Then she turned his chair to face them, and they both looked silently at the pictures. They were drawings of the French lines, and the peasant life behind them. Dead soldiers, old women by a grave, young mothers following the plow--men tense, just before action. The subjects were already familiar enough through the work of war correspondents and photographers, but the treatment was that of a great artist. The soul of a nation was there--which is always so much greater than the soul of an individual. The drawings were not of men and women, but of one of the world's greatest races at the moment of its transfiguration. For the twentieth time Mary's eyes moistened as she looked at them. The shadows began to lengthen. Shouts came from the slope, and presently Ellie's sturdy form appeared through the trees, followed by the somewhat disheveled Sparrow carrying Rosamond, who was smiting her shoulder and crowing loudly. “I'll come and help you in a few minutes, Sparrow,” Mary called, as the procession crossed the lawn, her face beaming love upon it. “Can you spare the few minutes, dear?” Stefan asked, watching her. “Yes, indeed, they won't need me yet.” The light was quite golden now; the dahlias seemed on fire under it. “Mary,” said Stefan, “I've been thinking a lot about you lately.” “Have you, dear?”