rital relations to
national politics, and she tried to exult in it. Only she did not find
it. She saw the women who made bandages for the Red Cross giving
up bridge, and laughing at having to do without sugar, but over the
surgical-dressings they did not speak of God and the souls of men, but
of Miles Bjornstam's impudence, of Terry Gould's scandalous carryings-on
with a farmer's daughter four years ago, of cooking cabbage, and of
altering blouses. Their references to the war touched atrocities only.
She herself was punctual, and efficient at making dressings, but she
could not, like Mrs. Lyman Cass and Mrs. Bogart, fill the dressings with
hate for enemies.

When she protested to Vida, "The young do the work while these old ones
sit around and interrupt us and gag with hate because they're too feeble
to do anything but hate," then Vida turned on her:

"If you can't be reverent, at least don't be so pert and opinionated,
now when men and women are dying. Some of us--we have given up so much,
and we're glad to. At least we expect that you others sha'n't try to be
witty at our expense."

There was weeping.

Carol did desire to see the Prussian autocracy defeated; she did
persuade herself that there were no autocracies save that of Prussia;
she did thrill to motion-pictures of troops embarking in New York; and
she was uncomfortable when she met Miles Bjornstam on the street and he
croaked:

"How's tricks? Things going fine with me; got two new cows. Well, have
you become a patriot? Eh? Sure, they'll bring democracy--the democracy
of death. Yes, sure, in every war since the Garden of Eden the workmen
have gone out to fight each other for perfectly good reasons--handed to
them by their bosses. Now me, I'm wise. I'm so wise that I know I don't
know anything about the war."

It was not a thought of the war that remained with her after Miles's
declamation but a perception that she and Vida and all of the
good-intentioners who wanted to "do something for the common people"
were insignificant, because the "common people" were able to do things
for themselves, and highly likely to, as soon as they learned the
fact. The conception of millions of workmen like Miles taking control
frightened her, and she scuttled rapidly away from the thought of a time
when she might no longer retain the position of Lady Bountiful to the
Bjornstams and Beas and Oscarinas whom she loved--and patronized.

III

It was in June, two months a