iminished.

"He's calling them off--the god of war. What's his name?" she said.

"Thor. Weren't you frightened?" he asked curiously.

"No. It was worth all the dull days I've ever spent. I know how to go
out now, Paul, if the time comes: up here, in glorious destruction!"

"You queer, uncanny Celt," said he.

Later they opened the door and ventured out. The earth was blotted out
in blackness, as of the void before God spoke. They made for a rock a
few feet from the cabin, and stood peering off into opaque nothingness.
Barbara felt for Paul's hand and clung to it. They stood so for a space
of time, silent.

"I'm ready now to go back down. There's nothing more to learn up here. I
know His peace and His wrath," she said at last.

"Life seems simpler, somehow--and greater, much greater," he answered
her.

II

Monday found them back in New York. As they drove from the station to
the hotel they watched the passing panorama in silence.

"It seems a little dwarfed, doesn't it?" Barbara said.

"Yes. New York needs an occasional dose of absence, to keep the
perspective true," he answered.

They looked about the hotel living-room with a sense of its strangeness.
The maid had everything in order, even to flowers everywhere.

"I can't seem to remember why we clutter up with so many luxuries,"
Barbara sighed.

"Are you a little sorry that you slit the envelope?" he teased her.

"No. Are you sorry I did it?"

"I had more to leave behind than you did."

She looked her surprise.

"I left the best playmate I ever had, up there in the hills."

"You mean Bill?" impudently.

"I mean the 'little feller'."

"You must ask him to visit you."

"No, he belongs to the hills and a heyday holiday. I doubt if Barbara
Garratry, Broadway's darling, would care for that kid."

"I'm partial to nice boys."

"He might be fascinated with you, and make me jealous."

"That is a joke," she laughed. "I had to make a sacrifice, too, you
know."

"You mean?"

"I had to exchange a big boy chum for a possible governor, plain garden
variety."

"I wonder if that big boy and the little feller will ever play again?"

"'I ain't no pruphut,' as Bill says."

The morrow found them both buckling down to work. Paul went off to his
office at nine, and Barbara was due at the theatre an hour later. He
stopped at her door a moment before he left.

"I seem to recall a great many truisms about the joy of work!"

"It's flapdoodle," she agr