e always
held together. He's had no one else to care about. And now you've
come, and he thinks you want to take me away from him."

"I do," Francey said unexpectedly.

"Not in the way he means."

"You don't know----"

"He's been good to me. I'd never have got through without him. I
can't have him hurt. And you will fight him, Francey. I know he's
crabbed and bitter, but so would you be if you'd been twisted out of
shape all your life. And you only do it for the fun of the thing.
Fundamentally, you think alike."

"We don't, that's just it. I'm sorry for him, and if it had been
anything less vital I'd compromise--he'd compromise, too, perhaps.
We'd both lie low and look pleasant about our differences. But as it
is we can't help ourselves. We've got to stand up and fight----"

"I say, that sounds jolly dramatic."

"It is rather."

"Next thing you'll be saying you believe in God."

"Well, I do----"

He stopped short and let go her hand. He was physically ashamed and
uncomfortable. He tried to laugh, but for the moment they were face to
face, and he could not mistake her seriousness. They were like
strangers, peering at each other through the grey dusk.

"Look here, Francey, dearest, you don't expect me to believe that?
You're just joking, aren't you? You're--you're a modern woman, with a
scientific training, too. You can't believe in an old, worn-out myth."

"I didn't say that."

"'An untested hypothesis,'" he quoted teasingly, but with a stirring
anger.

"I don't know about that, either. We're both bound by our profession
to admit an empirical test. And if we human beings can't survive
without God----"

"But we can--we do."

"I can't."

He threw up his head.

"Why do women always become personal when they argue?"

"And why do rationalists always become irrational?"

They walked on slowly, apart, vaguely afraid. He wanted to change the
subject, to take her by the arm and hold her fast. For she was
drifting away from him. Her voice sounded remote and troubling, like a
little old tune that he could not quite remember. Its emotion fretted
his overstrained nerves. He wanted to close his ears against it. It
was a trivial tune which might become a torment.

"It's not only me. It's everyone. Most of us are frightfully unhappy.
Don't you realize that? And the more we understand life the more
desperate we get. Savages and children may do without a god, but we
can't. We know t