dully. "Grace? Now wait a minute. You're
travelling too fast for a mere man." His hand was gripping hers, tight,
tight.

Their dinner was cooling on the table. They ignored it. She pulled a
chair around to his. They sat shoulder to shoulder, elbows on the cloth.

"It took me long enough to wake up, didn't it? I've got to make up for
lost time. The whole thing's clear in my mind. Now get this: Jock gets a
commission. Grace and the babies pack up and come to New York, and live
right here, with me, in this house. Fisk goes to war. Gertie gets well
and comes back to work for Featherlooms. Mr. T.A. Buck goes to Bordeaux.
Old Emmer takes off her uniform and begins to serve her country--on the
road."

At that he got up and began pacing the room. "I can't have you do that,
dear. Why, you left all that behind when you married me."

"Yes, but our marriage certificate didn't carry a war guarantee."

"Gad, Emma, you're glorious!"

"Glorious nothing! I'm going to earn the living for three families for a
few months, until things get going. And there's nothing glorious about
that, old dear. I haven't any illusions about what taking a line on the
road means these days. It isn't travelling. It's exploring. You never
know where you're going to land, or when, unless you're travelling in a
freight train. They're cock o' the walk now. I think I'll check myself
through as first-class freight. Or send my pack ahead, with natives on
foot, like an African explorer. But it'll be awfully good for me
character. And when I'm eating that criminal corn bread they serve on
dining cars on a train that's seven hours late into Duluth I'll remember
when I had my picture, in uniform, in the Sunday supplements, with my
hand on the steering wheel along o' the nobility and gentry."

"Listen, dear, I can't have you--"

"Too late. Got a pencil? Let's send fifty words to Jock and Grace.
They'll wire back 'No!' but another fifty'll fetch 'em. After all, it
takes more than one night letter to explain a move that is going to
change eight lives. Now let's have dinner, dear. It'll be cold, but
filling."

Perhaps in the whirlwind ten days that followed a woman of less energy,
less determination, less courage and magnificent vitality might have
faltered and failed in an undertaking of such magnitude. But Emma was
alert and forceful enough to keep just one jump ahead of the
swift-moving times. In a less cataclysmic age the changes she wrought
within a period