"Don't put it that way--it's her--age--first. It ain't what she wants and don't want; it's what she's got to have. My mother couldn't live away from me."

"She could if you were called to war."

There was something electric in the silence that followed, something that seemed to tighten the gaze of each for the other.

"But I haven't been--yet."

"The next draft will get you."

"Maybe."

"Well, what'll you do then?"

"That's something me and ma haven't ever discussed. The war hasn't been mentioned in our house for two years--except that the letters don't come from Germany, and that's a grief to her. There's enough time for her to cross that bridge when we come to it. She worries about it enough."

"If I was a man I'd enlist, I would!"

"I'd give my right hand to. Every other night I dream I'm a lieutenant."

"Why, there's not a fellow I know that hasn't beaten the draft to it and enlisted for the kind of service he wants. I know a half a dozen who have got in the home guard and things and have saved themselves by volunteering from being sent to France."

"I wouldn't dodge the front thataway. I'd like to enlist as a private and then work myself up to lieutenant and then on up to captain and get right into the fray on the front. I--"

"You bet, if I was a fellow, I'd enlist for the kind of home service I wanted--that's what Eddie and all the fellows are doing."

"So would I, Clara, if I was what you call a--free man. There's nobody given it more thought than me."

"Well, then, why don't you? Talk's cheap."

"You know why, Clara, to get back to going around in a circle again."

"But you've got to go, sooner or later. You've got a comfortable married sister and independent circumstances of your own to keep your mother; you haven't got a chance for exemption."

"I don't want exemption."

"Well, then, beat the draft to it."

"I--Most girls ain't so anxious to--to get rid of their best fellows, Clara."

"Silly! Can't you see the point? If--if you'd enlist and go off to camp, I--I could go and live near you there like Birdie Harberger does her husband. See?"

"You mean--"

"Then--God forbid anything should happen to you!--I'm your wife. You see, Sam?"

"Why, Clara--"

"You see what I mean. But nothing can happen this way, because if you try to enlist in some mechanical department where they need you in this country--you see, Sam? See?"

"I--see."

"Your mother would have to get used to things then, Sam--it would be the easiest for her. An old lady like her couldn't go trailing around the outskirts of a camp like your wife could. Think of the comfort it'll be to her to have me with you if she can't be. She'll get so used to--living alone--"

"I--You mustn't talk that way to me, Clara. When I'm called to serve my country, I'm the first one that will want to go. I've given more money already than I can afford to help the boys who are at the front. So far as I'm concerned, enlisting like this with--with you--around, would be the happiest thing ever happened to me, but--well, you see for yourself."

"You mean, then, you won't?"

"I mean, Clara, I can't."

She was immediately level of tone again and pushed back, placing her folded napkin beside her place, patting it down.

"Well, then, Sam, I'm done."

"'Done,' Clara?"

"Yep. That lets me out. I've given you every chance to make this thing possible. Your mother is no better and no different than thousands and thousands of other mothers who are giving their sons, only, she is better off than most, because she's provided for. It's all right for a fellow's mother to come first, maybe, but if his wife isn't even to come second or third or tenth, then it's about time to call quits. I haven't made up my mind to this in a day. I'm done."

"Clara--"

"Ed has asked me. I don't pretend he's my ideal, but he's more concerned about my future than he is about anybody else's. If I'm ready to leave with him on that twelve-o'clock train for Boston to-morrow, where he's going to be put in the clerical corps at Camp Usonis, we'll be married there to-morrow night, and I'll settle down somewhere near camp as long as I can. He's got a good nest-egg if--God forbid!--anything should happen. That's the whole thing in a nutshell."

"My God! Clara, this is awful! Eddie Leonard he's not your kind; he--"

"I've given you first chance, Sam. That proves how you stand with me. A one! Ace high! First! Nobody can ever take your place with me. Don't be a boob coming and going, Sam; you're one now not to see things and you'll be another one spelled backward if you don't help yourself to your chance when it comes. You've got your life in front of you, and your mother's got hers in back of her. Now choose."

"My God! Clara, this is--terrible! Why--I'd rather be a thousand boobs than take my mother's heart and tear it to pieces."

"You won't?"

"I can't."

"Don't say that, Sam. Go home and--sleep on it. Think it over. Please!

Come to your senses, honey. Telephone me at eleven to keep me from catching that twelve-o'clock train. Don't let me take it with Eddie.

Think it over, Sam. Honey--our--future--don't throw it away! Don't let me take that twelve-o'clock train!"

There were tears streaming from her eyes, and her lips, so carefully firm, were beginning to tremble. "You can't blame a girl, Sam, for wanting to provide for her future. Can you, Sam? Think it over. Please!

I'll be praying when eleven o'clock comes to-morrow morning for you to telephone me. Please, Sam--think!"

He dropped his face low, lower toward the table, trembling under the red wave that surged over him and up into the roots of his hair. "I'll think it over, Clara--my girl--my own girl!"

As if the moments themselves had been woven by her flying amber needles into a whole cloth of meditation, Mrs. Lipkind, beside a kitchen lamp that flowed in gracious light, knitted the long, quiet hours of her evening into fabric, her face screwed and out of repose and occasionally the lips moving. Age is prone to that. Memories love to be mumbled and chewed over--the unconscious kind of articulation which comes with the years and for which youth has a wink and a quirk.

A tiger cat with overfed sides and a stare that seemed to doze purred on the window-ledge, gold and unswerving of eye. The silence was like the singing inside of a shell, and into it rocked Mrs. Lipkind.

By nine o'clock she was already glancing up at the clock, cocking her head to each and every of night's creaks.

By half after nine there were small and frequent periods of peering through cupped hands down into a street so remote that its traffic had neither shape nor identity. Once she went down a long slit of hallway to the front door, opening it and gazing out upon a fog-filled corridor that was papered in embossed leatherette, one speckled incandescent bulb lighting it sadly. There was something impregnable, even terrible to her in the featureless stare of the doors of three adjoining apartments. She tiptoed, almost ran, poor dear! with the consciousness of some one at her heels, back to the kitchen, where at least was the warm print of the cat's presence; fell to knitting again, clacking her needles for the solace of explainable sound.