ht Marise. "There are enough
potatoes left to have them creamed."

Like a stab came the thought, "Creamed potatoes to please our palates
and thousands of babies in Vienna without milk enough to _live_!" She
shook the thought off, saying to herself, "Well, would it make any
difference to those Viennese babies if I deprived my children of
palatable food?" and was aware of a deep murmur within her, saying only
half-articulately, "No, it wouldn't make any literal difference to those
babies, but it might make a difference to you. You are taking another
step along the road of hardening of heart."

All this had been the merest muted arpeggio accompaniment to the steady
practical advance of her housekeeper's mind. "And beefsteak . . . Mark
likes that. At fifty cents a pound! What awful prices. Well, Neale
writes that the Canadian lumber is coming through. That'll mean a fair
profit. What better use can we put profit to, than in buying the best
food for our children's growth. Beefsteak is not a sinful luxury!"

The arpeggio accompaniment began murmuring, "But the Powers children.
Nelly and 'Gene can't afford fifty cents a pound for beefsteak. Perhaps
part of their little Ralph's queerness and abnormality comes from lack
of proper food. And those white-cheeked little Putnam children in the
valley. They probably don't taste meat, except pork, more than once a
week." She protested sharply, "But if their father won't work steadily,
when there is always work to be had?" And heard the murmuring answer,
"Why should the children suffer because of something they can't change?"

She drew a long breath, brushed all this away with an effort, asking
herself defiantly, "Oh, what has all this to do with _us_?" And was
aware of the answer, "It has everything to do with us, only I can't
figure it out."

Impatiently she proposed to herself, "But while I'm trying to figure it
out, wouldn't I better just go ahead and have beefsteak today?" and
wearily, "Yes, of course, we'll have beefsteak as usual. That's the way
I always decide things."

She buttered a piece of toast and began to eat it, thinking, "I'm a
lovely specimen, anyhow, of a clear-headed, thoughtful modern woman,
muddling along as I do."

The clock struck the half-hour. Paul rose as though the sound had lifted
him bodily from his seat. Elly did not hear, her eyes fixed dreamily on
her kitten, stroking its rounded head, lost in the sensation of the
softness of the fur.

Her moth