"If I knew I would tell you. But I don't. You see.... Well, I shall not live with Mr. Dwight again. We had been really separated a long while before I left--and then he has done nothing for the war. That is only one reason. What should I do there? I had thought of going into business before I left. But I shall have a good income, and what right have I to go into business and use my large connection to get customers away from those that need the money for their actual bread?" "Not the ghost of an excuse. Farce, I call it. As long as the present system lasts women of your class better be ornamental and satisfied with that than take the bread out of mouths that need it." "I could not settle down to the old life. It isn't that I'm in love with work. For that matter I'm only too grateful to be able to rest. But I must fill in, some way. Possibly I could do that better in France or England, where vita! subjects are always being discussed--and happening!--where I would not only be interested but possibly useful in many ways. I should feel rather a brute, knowing the conditions of Europe as I do, to go back and settle down on the smiling abundance of California. And bored to death." "Then you think you'll stay? ... You'd be wasted there--at present--sure enough." "Sometimes I think I'll buy this house. I could for a song. Heavens! _How_ I have longed for solitude in the last four years! I could have it here with my books, and go to Paris as often as I wished. It would be an ideal life. I could afford a car, and to make this house very livable. And that garden ... between those gray high walls ... in there ... that would...." She had forgotten Kirkpatrick and was staring through the long windows at the dripping trees and the riot of green. "There is something about the old world ... in its byways like this ... not in its hateful capitals...." "Do you mean there's something you want to forget? That this place would be consolin' like?" She met Kirkpatrick's sharp dilated eyes with smiling composure. "This war, and much that has happened--incidental to it; yes." "You could forget it easier in California." "I should forget too much." "It's awful to think of you not comin' back, though I understand well enough. Europe suits you all right. But ... but...." He rose abruptly almost overturning his fragile chair.