ue impatiently. "If he keeps on at this pace it will
kill him! Has he no right to some joy in life? Why should you two have
it all? Just think of it, Billy, you have a name, success and a lot of
power! Why not use it here? Suppose it is harder! Oh, I get so out of
patience with myself and all of us! Our easy, lazy, soft little lives!
Why can't we _give_ ourselves a little?" And she went back over all Joe
had said. "It's all so real. So tremendously real," she ended.

* * * * *

"I wonder what's going to happen," said Eleanore when we were alone.

"God knows," I answered gloomily. That hammering from Joe and Sue had
stirred me up all over again. I had doggedly resisted, I had told Sue
almost angrily that I meant to keep right on as before. But now she was
gone, I was not so sure. "I still feel certain Joe's all wrong," I said
aloud. "But he and his kind are so dead in earnest--so ready for any
sacrifice to push their utterly wild ideas--that they may get a lot of
power. God help the country if they do."

"I wasn't speaking of the country, my love," my wife informed me
cheerfully. "I was speaking of Sue and Joe Kramer."

"Joe," I replied, "will slam right ahead. You can be sure of that, I've
got him down cold."

"Have you?" she asked. "And how about Sue?"

"Oh Sue," I replied indifferently, "has been enthused so many times."

"Billy."

I turned and saw my wife regarding her husband thoughtfully.

"I wonder," she said, "how long it will be before you can write a love
story."

"What?"

"Sue and Joe Kramer, you idiot."

I stared at her dumfounded.

"Did you think all that talk was aimed at you?" my pitiless spouse
continued. "Did you think all that change in Joe's point of view was on
your account?"

I watched her vigilantly for a while.

"If there's anything in what you say," I remarked carefully at last,
"I'll bet at least that Joe doesn't know it. He doesn't even suspect
it."

"There are so many things," said Eleanore, "that men don't even suspect
in themselves. I'm sorry," she added regretfully. "But that summer
vacation we'd planned is off."

"What?"

"Oh, yes, we'll stay right here in town. I see anything but a pleasant
summer."

"Suppose," I said excitedly, "you tell me exactly what you _do_ see!"

"I see something," Eleanore answered, "which unless we can stop it may
be a very tragic affair. Tragic for Sue because I feel sure that she'd
never stand Joe's imp