She went back to the old life. But it was in a bitter, restless,

critical spirit, conscious of the fact that she could derive neither

forgetfulness nor pleasure from it, nor see any release from the habit

of years.

One afternoon, late in the fall, she motored out to a Long Island club

where the last of the season's golf was being enjoyed by some of her

most intimate friends. Carley did not play. Aimlessly she walked around

the grounds, finding the autumn colors subdued and drab, like her mind.

The air held a promise of early winter. She thought that she would go

South before the cold came. Always trying to escape anything rigorous,

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hard, painful, or disagreeable! Later she returned to the clubhouse to

find her party assembled on an inclosed porch, chatting and partaking

of refreshment. Morrison was there. He had not taken kindly to her late

habit of denying herself to him.

During a lull in the idle conversation Morrison addressed Carley

pointedly. "Well, Carley, how's your Arizona hog-raiser?" he queried,

with a little gleam in his usually lusterless eyes.

"I have not heard lately," she replied, coldly.

The assembled company suddenly quieted with a portent inimical to their

leisurely content of the moment. Carley felt them all looking at her,

and underneath the exterior she preserved with extreme difficulty, there

burned so fierce an anger that she seemed to have swelling veins of

fire.

"Queer how Kilbourne went into raising hogs," observed Morrison. "Such a

low-down sort of work, you know."

"He had no choice," replied Carley. "Glenn didn't have a father who made

tainted millions out of the war. He had to work. And I must differ with

you about its being low-down. No honest work is that. It is idleness

that is low down."

"But so foolish of Glenn when he might have married money," rejoined

Morrison, sarcastcally.

"The honor of soldiers is beyond your ken, Mr. Morrison."

He flushed darkly and bit his lip.

"You women make a man sick with this rot about soldiers," he said, the

gleam in his eye growing ugly. "A uniform goes to a woman's head

no matter what's inside it. I don't see where your vaunted honor of

soldiers comes in considering how they accepted the let-down of women

during and after the war."

"How could you see when you stayed comfortably at home?" retorted

Carley.

"All I could see was women falling into soldiers' arms," he said,

sullenly.

"Certainly. Could an American girl desire any greater happiness--or

opportunity to prove her gratitude?" flashed Carley, with proud uplift

of head.




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