meddling, nor Bingham,
and there was no shadowy third anywhere in town. She was heart free!
That was something!

There was the dead husband, of course, but his memory would fade as time
went on. "Just now, people who are dead or dying, are in the swim,"
thought Boreham; "but just wait till the war is over!" He swiftly
imagined publishers and editors of journals refusing anything that
referred to the war or to any dismal subject connected with it. The
British public would have no use for the dead when the war was over. The
British public would be occupied with the future; how to make money, how
to spend it. Stories about love and hate among the living would be
wanted, or pleasant discourses about the consolations of religion and
blessed hopes of immortality for those who were making the money and
spending it!

Boreham sneered as he thought this, and yet he himself desired intensely
that men, and especially women, should forget the dead, and, above all,
that May should forget her dead and occupy herself in being a pretty and
attractive person of the female sex.

"I will wait," said Boreham, eagerly; "I won't ask you for an answer
now."

"Now you know my position, you will not put any question to me!" said
May, very quietly.

There came a moment's oppressive silence.

"I may continue to be your friend," he demanded; "you won't punish me?"
and his voice was urgent.

"Of course not," she said.

"I may come and see you?" he urged again.

"Any friends of mine may come and see me, if they care to," she said;
"but I am very much occupied during the day--and tired in the evenings."

"Sundays?" he interrupted.

"My Sundays I spend with friends in Surrey."

Boreham jerked his head nervously. "I shall be living in Town almost
immediately," he said; "I will come and see what times would be
convenient."

"I am very stupid when my day's work is done," said May.

"Stupid!" Boreham laughed harshly. "But your work is too hard and most
unsuitable. Any woman can attend to babies."

"I flatter myself," said May, "that I can wash a baby without forgetting
to dry it."

"Why do you hide yourself?" he exclaimed. "Why do you throw yourself
away?" He felt that, with her beside him, he could dictate to the world
like a god. "Why don't you organise?"

"Do you mean run about and talk," asked May, "and leave the work to
other people? Don't you think that we are beginning to hate people who
run about and talk?"

"Because the