to this country to
make a home, and as I was rather a long time about it, she married some
one else."

Clayton caught the echo of an old pain in Buckham's repressed voice.
Buckham, too! Was there in the life of every man some woman tragedy?
Buckham, sitting alone in his west window and looking toward the sunset,
Buckham had his memories.

"She lost her only son at Neuve Chapelle," Buckham was saying quietly.
"In a way, it was as tho I had lost a boy. She never cared for the man
she married. He was a fine boy, sir. I--you may remember the night I was
taken ill in the pantry."

"Is her husband still living?"

"No, Mr. Spencer."

"Do you ever think of going back and finding her?"

"I have, sir. But I don't know. I like to remember her as she used to
be. I have some beautiful memories. And I think sometimes it is better
to live on memories. They are more real than--well, than reality, sir."

Long after Buckham had withdrawn, Clayton paced the floor of the
library. Was Buckham right? Was the real life of a man his mental life?
Was any love so great as a man's dream of love? Peace was on the way.
Soon this nightmare of war would be over, and in the great awakening
love would again take the place of hate. Love of man for man, of nation
for nation. Peace and the things of peace. Time to live. Time to hope,
with the death-cloud gone. Time to work and time to play. Time to love a
woman and cherish her for the rest of life, if only--

His failure with Natalie had lost him something. She had cost him his
belief in himself. Her last words had crystallized his own sense of
failure.

"I admit all your good qualities, Clay. Heaven knows they are evident
enough. But you are the sort people admire. They don't love you. They
never will."

Yet that night he had had a curious sense that old Buckham loved him.
Maybe he was the sort men loved and women admired.

He sat down and leaned back in his chair, watching the fire-logs. He
felt very tired. What was that Buckham had said about memories? But
Buckham was old. He was young, young and strong. There would be many
years, and even his most poignant memories would grow dim.

Audrey! Audrey!

From the wall over the mantel Natalie's portrait still surveyed the room
with its delicate complacence. He looked up at it. Yes, Natalie had been
right, he was not the sort to make a woman happy. There were plenty of
men, young men, men still plastic, men who had not known shipwreck, and