Laurie Shafton had caught Lynn as she came down the stairs with a bit of sewing in her hand to give Naomi a direction from her mother, and had begged her to come out on the porch and talk to him. He pleaded that he was lonesome, and that it was her duty as hostess to amuse him for a while.

Lynn had no relish for talking with the guest. Her heart was too sore to care to talk with any one. But her innate courtesy, and natural gentleness finally yielded to his pleading, for Laurie had put on a humility that was almost becoming, and made her seem really rude to refuse.

She made him sit down in the hammock at the far end, however, and insisted on herself taking the little rocker quite near the front door. She knew her father would soon be returning from some parish calls and would relieve her, so she settled herself with the bit of linen she was hemstitching and prepared to make the best of it.

“It's a shame my car is out of commission yet,” began Laurie settling back in the hammock and by some strange miracle refraining from lighting a cigarette. It wouldn't have entered his head that Lynn would have minded. He didn't know any girls objected to smoking. But this girl interested him strangely. He wasn't at all sure but it was a case of love at first sight. He had always been looking for that to happen to him. He hoped it had. It would be such a delightful experience. He had tried most of the other kinds.

“Yes, it is too bad for you to be held up in your journey this way,” sympathized Lynn heartily, “but father says the blacksmith is going to fix you up by to-morrow he hopes. Those bearings will likely come to-night.”

“Oh, but it has been a dandy experience. I'm certainly glad it happened. Think what I should have missed all my life, not knowing you!”

He paused and looked soulfully at Lynn waiting for an appreciative glance from her fully occupied eyes, but Lynn seemed to have missed the point entirely:

“I should think you might have well afforded to lose the experience of being held up in a dull little town that couldn't possibly be of the slightest interest to you,” she said dryly, with the obvious idea of making talk.

“Oh, but I think it is charming,” he said lightly! “I hadn't an idea there was such a place in the world as this. It's ideal, don't you know, so secluded and absolutely restful. I'm having a dandy time, and you people have been just wonderful to me. I think I shall come back often if you'll let me.”

“I can't imagine your enjoying it,” said Lynn looking at him keenly, “It must be so utterly apart from your customary life. It must seem quite crude and almost uncivilized to you.”

“That's just it, it's so charmingly quaint. I'm bored to death with life as I'm used to it. I'm always seeking for a new sensation, and I seem to have lighted on it here all unexpectedly. I certainly hope my car will be fixed by morning. If it isn't I'll telegraph for my man and have him bring down some bearings in one of the other cars and fix me up. I'm determined to take you around a bit and have you show me the country. I know it would be great under your guidance.”

“Thank you,” said Lynn coolly, “But I haven't much time for pleasuring just now, and you will be wanting to go on your way—”

He flushed with annoyance. He was not accustomed to being baffled in this way by any girl, but he had sense enough to know that only by patience and humility could he win any notice from her.

“Oh, I shall want to linger a bit and let this doctor finish up this ankle of mine. It isn't fair to go away to another doctor before I'm on my feet again.”

He thought she looked annoyed, but she did not answer.

“Did you ever ride in a racer?” he asked suddenly, “I'll teach you to drive. Would you like that?”

“Thank you,” she said pleasantly, “but that wouldn't be necessary, I know how to drive.”

He almost thought there was a twinkle of mischief in her eye:

“You know how to drive! But you haven't a car? Oh, I suppose that young Carter taught you to drive his,” he said with chagrin. He was growing angry. He began to suspect her of playing with him. After all, even if she was engaged to that chap, he had gone off with Opal quite willingly it would appear. Why should he and she not have a little fling?

“No,” said Marilyn, “Mr. Carter did not have a car until he went away from Sabbath Valley. I learned while I was in college.”

“Oh, you've been to college!” the young man sat up with interest, “I thought there was something too sophisticated about you to have come out of a place like this. You had a car while you were in college I suppose.”.

Lynn's eyes were dancing:

“Why didn't you say 'dump' like this? That's what your tone said,” she laughed, “and only a minute ago you were saying how charming it was. No, I had no car in college, I was—” But he interrupted her eagerly:

“Now, you are misunderstanding me on purpose,” he declared in a hurt tone. “I think this is an ideal spot off in the hills this way, the quaintest little Utopia in the world, but of course you know you haven't the air of one who had never been out of the hills, and the sweet sheltered atmosphere of this village. Tell me, when and where did you drive a car, and I'll see if I can't give you one better for a joy ride.”

Lynn looked up placidly and smiled:

“In New York,” she said quietly, “at the beginning of the war, and afterward in France.”

Laurie Shafton sat up excitedly, the color flushing into his handsome face:

“Were you in France?” he said admiringly, “Well, I might have known. I saw there was something different about you. Y. M., I suppose?”

“No,” said Lynn, “Salvation Army. My father has been a friend of the Commander's all his life. She knew, that we believed in all their principles. There were only a very few outsiders, those whom they knew well, allowed to go with them. I was one.”

“Well,” said Laurie, eyeing her almost embarrassedly, “You girls made a great name for yourselves with your doughnuts and your pies. The only thing I had against you was that you didn't treat us officers always the way we ought to have been treated. But I suppose there were individual exceptions. I went into a hut one night and tried to get some cigarettes and they wouldn't let me have any.”

“No, we didn't sell cigarettes,” said Lynn with satisfaction, “That wasn't what we were there for. We had a few for the wounded and dying who were used to them and needed them of course, but we didn't sell them.”

“And then I tried to get some doughnuts and coffee, but would you believe it, they wouldn't let me have any till all the fellows in line had been served. They said I had to take my turn! They were quite insulting about it! Of course they did good, but they ought to have been made to understand that they couldn't treat United States Officers that way!”

“Why not? Were you any better than any of the soldiers?” she asked eyeing him calmly, and somehow he seemed to feel smaller than his normal estimate of himself.

“An officer?” he said with a contemptuous haughty light in his eye.

“What is an officer but the servant of his men?” asked Lynn. “Would you want to eat before them when they had stood hours in line waiting? They who had all the hard work and none of the honors?”

Laurie's cheeks were flushed and his eyes angry:

“That's rot!” he said rudely, “Where did you get it? The officers were picked from the cream of the land. They represent the great Nation. An insult to them is an insult to the Nation—!”

Lynn began to smile impudently—and her eyes were dancing again.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, you must not forget I was there. I knew both officers and men. I admit that some of the officers were princely, fit men to represent a great Christian Nation, but some of them again were well—the scum of the earth, rather than the cream. Mr. Shafton it does not make a man better than his fellows to be an officer, and it does not make him fit to be an officer just because his father is able to buy him a commission.”

Laurie flushed angrily again:

“My father did not buy me a commission!” he said indignantly, “I went to a training camp and won it.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, I meant nothing personal, but I certainly had no use for an officer who came bustling in on those long lines of weary soul-sick boys just back from the front, and perhaps off again that night, and tried to get ahead of them in line. However, let's talk of something else. Were you ever up around Dead Man's Curve? What division were you in?”

Laurie let his anger die out and answered her questions. For a few minutes they held quite an animated conversation about France and the various phases of the war. Laurie had been in air service. One could see just how handsome he must have looked in his uniform. One would know also that he would be brave and reckless. It was written all over his face and in his very attitude. He showed her his “croix de guerre.”

“Mark was taken prisoner by the Germans,” she said sadly as she handed it back, her eyes dreamy and faraway, then suddenly seeming to realize that she had spoken her thoughts aloud she flushed and hurried on to other experiences during the war, but she talked abstractedly, as one whose thoughts had suddenly been diverted. The young man watched her baffled:

“You seem so aloof,” he said all at once watching her as she sewed away on the bit of linen, “You seem almost as if you—well—despised me. Excuse me if I say that it's a rather new experience. People in my world don't act that way to me, really they don't. And you don't even know who I am nor anything about me. Do you think that's quite fair?”

Lynn looked at him with suddenly arrested attention:

“I'm sorry,” she said, “I didn't mean to be rude. But possibly you've come to the heart of the matter. I am not of your world. You know there's a great deal in not being able to get another's point of view. I hope I haven't done you an injustice. I haven't meant to. But you're wrong in saying I don't know who you are or anything about you. You are the son of William J. Shafton—the only son, isn't that so? Then you are the one I mean. There can't be any mistake. And I do know something about you. In fact I've been very angry at you, and wished I might meet you and tell you what I thought of you.”

“You don't say!” said Laurie getting up excitedly and moving over to a chair next to hers regardless of his lame ankle, “This certainly is interesting! What the deuce have I been doing to get myself in your bad graces? I better repent at once before I hear what it is?”

“You are the one who owns the block of warehouses down on —— street and won't sell at any price to give the little children in all that region a place to get a bit of fresh air, the grass and a view of the sky. You are the one who won't pull down your old buildings and try new and improved ways of housing the poor around there so that they can grow up decently clean and healthy and have a little chance in this world. Just because you can't have as many apartments and get as much money from your investment you let the little children crowd together in rooms that aren't fit for the pigs to live in, they are so dark and airless, and crowded already. Oh, I know you keep within the law! You just skin through without breaking it, but you won't help a little bit, you won't even let your property help if someone else is willing to take the bother! Oh, I've been so boiling at you ever since I heard your name that I couldn't hardly keep my tongue still, to think of that great beautiful car out there and how much it must have cost, and to hear you speak of one of your other cars as if you had millions of them, and to think of little Carmela living down in the basement room of Number 18 in your block, growing whiter and whiter every day, with her great blue eyes and her soft fine wavy hair, and that hungry eager look in her face. And her mother, sewing, sewing, all day long at the little cellar window, and going blind because you won't put in a bigger one; sewing on coarse dark vests, putting in pockets and buttonholes for a living for her and Carmela, and you grinding her down and running around in cars like that and taking it out of little Carmela, and little Carmela's mother! Oh! How can I help feeling aloof from a person like that?”

Laurie sat up astonished watching her:

“Why, my dear girl!” he exclaimed, “Do you know what you're talking about? Do you realize that it would take a mint of money to do all the fool things that these silly reformers are always putting up to you? My lawyer looks after all those matters. Of course I know nothing about it—!”

“Well, you ought to know,” said Lynn excitedly, “Does the money belong to your lawyer? Isn't it yours to be responsible for? Well, then if you are stealing some of it out of little Carmela and a lot of other little children and their mothers and fathers oughtn't you to know? Is your lawyer going to take the responsibility about it in the kingdom of heaven I should like to know? Can he stand up in the judgment day and exempt you by saying that he had to do the best he could for your property because you required it of him? Excuse me for getting so excited, but I love little Carmela. I went to see her a great deal last winter when I was in New York taking my senior year at the University. And I can't help telling you the truth about it. I don't suppose you'll do anything about it, but at least you ought to know! And I'm not your dear girl, either!”

Marilyn rose suddenly from her chair, and stood facing him with blazing eyes and cheeks that were aflame. It was a revelation to the worldly wise young man that a saint so sweet could blossom suddenly into a beautiful and furious woman. It seemed unreal to find this wonderful, unique, excitable young woman with ideas in such a quiet secluded spot of the earth. Decidedly she had ideas.

“Excuse me,” he said, and rose also, an almost deprecatory air upon him, “I assure you I meant nothing out of the way, Miss Severn. I certainly respect and honor you—And really, I had no idea of all this about my property. I've never paid much heed to my property except to spend the income of course. It wasn't required of me. I must look into this matter. If I find it as you think—that is if there is no mistake, I will see what I can do to remedy it. In any case we will look after little Carmela. I'll settle some money on her mother, wouldn't that be the best way? I can't think things are as bad as you say—”

“Will you really do something about it?” asked Lynn earnestly, “Will you go up to New York and see for yourself? Will you go around in every room of your buildings and get acquainted with those people and find out just what the conditions are?”

“Why—I—!” he began uncertainly.

“Oh, I thought you couldn't stand that test! That would be too much bother—You would rather—!”

“No, Wait! I didn't say I wouldn't. Here! I'll go if you'll go with me and show me what you mean and what you want done. Come. I'll take you at your word. If you really want all those things come on and show me just what to do. I'm game. I'll do it. I'll do it whether it needs doing or not, just for you. Will you take me up?”

“Of course” said Lynn quickly, “I'll go with you and show you. I expect to be in New York next month helping at the Salvation Home while one of their workers is away on her vacation. I'll show you all over the district as many times as you need to go, if it's not too hot for you to come back to the city so early.”

He looked at her sharply. There was a covert sneer in her last words that angered him, and he was half inclined to refuse the whole thing, but somehow there was something in this strange new type of girl that fascinated him. Now that she had the university, and the war, and the world, for a background she puzzled and fascinated him more than ever. Half surprised at his own interest he bowed with a new kind of dignity over his habitual light manner:

“I shall be delighted, Miss Severn. It will not be too hot for me if it is not too hot for you. I shall be at your service, and I hope you will discover that there is one officer who knows how to obey.”

She looked at him half surprised, half troubled and then answered simply:

“Thank you. I'm afraid I've done you an injustice. I'm afraid I didn't think you would be game enough to do it. I hope I haven't been too rude. But you see I feel deeply about it and sometimes I forget myself?”

“I am sure I deserve all you have said,” said Laurie as gravely as his light nature could manage, “but there is one thing that puzzles me deeply. I wish you would enlighten me. All this won't do you any good. It isn't for you at all. Why do you care?”

Marilyn brought her lovely eyes to dwell on his face for a moment thoughtfully, a shy beautiful tenderness softening every line of her eager young face:

“It's because—” she began diffidently, “It's because they all are God's children—and I love Him better than anything else in life!”

The swift color made her face lovely as she spoke, and with the words she turned away and went quickly into the house. The young man looked after her and dared not follow. He had never had a shock like that in his life. Girls had talked about everything under heaven to him at one time or another, but they had never mentioned God except profanely.

Marilyn went swiftly up to her room and knelt down by her bed, burying her hot cheeks in the cool pillow and trying to pray. She was glad, glad that she had spoken for her poor city children, glad that there was a prospect or help perhaps; but beside and beyond it all her heart was crying out for another matter that was namelessly tugging away at the very foundations of her soul. Why, Oh Why had Mark gone away with that queer girl? He must have seen what she was! He must have known that it was unnecessary! He must have known how it would hurt his friends, and that the man she came to see could have gone as well as he and better. Why did he go? She would not, she could not believe anything wrong of Mark. Yet why did he go?

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