could get through without you, and
do it quickly, and could not get through with you"--he paused--"I should
leave you behind."

"And suppose, when I can walk, I do that myself?"

He smiled. "As you please," he said quietly. "I advise you to make your
estimate well, however. My hands and strength are assets which you might
have trouble in doing without."

"And do you estimate the whole of our relationship on a carefully
itemized basis of material gain and loss?"

"Claire, isn't that your understanding, stated by yourself, of our
partnership?"

"Yes, but--well, it's hard to estimate human companionship."

"I know it." He shifted nearer the fire. "I've tried to estimate yours."

"Indeed?" Her voice was full of interest.

"I've failed. You are worth a great deal, potentially."

"Exactly what do you mean?"

"I mean just this"--he stood up suddenly and faced her, his shadow
covering her like an ominous cloud--"that as Mrs. Claire Barkley you are
worth nothing to me except eyes, and, therefore, your personality and
conversation are of value only as time-fillers."

"Go on," she said steadily.

"But as Claire, the almost starved, ragged human being who is living
with me through a prolonged war with death, you are worth everything to
me--everything that I value."

"But isn't that what I have been from the beginning?" she flashed.

He answered slowly. "Yes--in a way."

Once more they lapsed into silence. In turn she tried to estimate his
worth to her, but failed. She began to recall the men she knew, and
concluded that she was without a standard of measurement. One by one she
pictured them and cast them aside, as somehow not the scale by which to
evaluate this man. At last, she began to think of her husband. It had
not occurred to her to think of him in comparison with Lawrence before,
and it made her wonder at her doing so now.

She fell to dreaming of the man who had been her lover in girlhood, and
her husband and dear companion these past six years. He was surely at
home, aching, yearning for the little girl he had lost. She could see
him sitting before the fireplace in their big living-room, his head on
his hands, his tired face in repose, while he gazed into the flames and
longed and longed for her. The picture grew in clearness. She saw the
joy that would be his when they met again, and she felt around her those
dear arms, crushing her against him in a rapture of reunion. In sudden
contrast, she was again