He was really surprising her now. She had grown up in the atmosphere of belief in that particular business. When a Hamilton said his earthly creed, he would have begun, if he had been honest, "I believe in wool."

"You're not retiring?" she hesitated.

"Yes."

"Made your pile, Rookie?"

At once they thought of Anne and the new complication she had saddled him with.

"That isn't the question," he evaded. "The amount of it is, I couldn't go to the office every morning and come home and go the next day, without--well, Nan, frankly, going off my nut. I hate it. I hate the whole business of what we call civilized life. I even think of giving d.i.c.k power of attorney and pa.s.sing all my stuff over into his hands."

"Oh, no," said Nan quickly, "you mustn't do that."

He frowned at her, perplexedly.

"Don't you trust him?" he asked. "Don't you trust d.i.c.k?"

"Of course I trust d.i.c.k," said she impatiently, "his intentions, that is."

"You ought to," said Raven. "You're bound to, the man you're going to marry."

She kept her eyes on him, but she said nothing. And suddenly Raven realized that he wanted to know about this business of marrying d.i.c.k. He wanted to know tremendously. Yet, though this was the little Nan who sometimes used to seem more his child than anybody's, he could not ask her. She looked difficult, if not wayward.

"Well," he compromised, "that's about where it is. I'm going into the country, to get away from the clack of men. My income, all but the little of it I set aside for food and taxes, will go to France. It may go through d.i.c.k or it may----Oh, well, well," he added, seeing the quick reb.u.t.tal again on her face, "that hasn't got to be decided in a hurry. But ultimately it goes to France."

"Why France?" asked Nan. "I see, though. They're all deserting her."

"It isn't altogether that," said Raven, as if he hadn't finished thinking it out. "It's because I believe in her so tremendously, that quick intelligence of hers. She mustn't be downed, mustn't be kept depleted. It's a loss too horrible to face. She sees the world as it is.

She knows the dangers. She's got to be protected from them, so she can go on seeing."

"What does she see?" asked Nan curiously. "What kind of thing?"

"Everything. Life. When it comes to what the collective brain can do, you can't limit her. You never'll make her believe in miracles, but she can find out how they're done."

"Mercy!" said Nan. "You talk like a book."

"Notes, for an essay: 'France.' I've been thinking 'em out. How she ought to be given a hand, so she doesn't have to spend the next thirty years or so outwitting the German devil. That's hard sledding for her beautiful intelligence. She ought to be safe, so she can turn it to other things: the science of living, hers, ours, everybody's."

"Ah," said Nan, "but they'll tell you it won't be for everybody: only France."

"That's the point," said Raven. "It's a gamble. But they can't deny she's got the beautiful intelligence. I can trust anything so perfect. I trust it absolutely."

"Why don't we do it ourselves? Build a fire under us, Rookie. Come on!"

"We aren't h.o.m.ogeneous," said Raven. "We've no race spirit, no live nerve through the whole of us. France has. That mind of hers, that leaping intelligence! If she were as holy as she is keen, she'd make the world the poets dreamed of."

"Then go to it," said Nan. "Turn in your money. I will mine. Stump you!"

"Not yet," said Raven. "You sit tight and see how I come out. I haven't got enough to set the Seine afire, but such as it is, I'd like to turn it over to her for what she needs most: agriculture, schools, research.

Administered so it could be withdrawn if she didn't make good and turned in somewhere else. Oh, it's a gamble! I told you it was. But administered, mind you. That's the point."

"Through d.i.c.k," she commented, plainly with dissatisfaction. "Now, why d.i.c.k?"

"Because," said Raven, "d.i.c.k's got a head for organizing. He's his father over again, plus the Raven streak. And the Raven streak doesn't do him any harm. It isn't soft, like Old Crow--and me. It's his mother in him, and she takes back--but O Lord! what's the sense of going into that?"

"Anyhow," said Nan, with decision, "you keep your affairs in your own hands."

"For the present, yes," said Raven. "And I do want to think it out in detail. I can do it at Wake Hill. I shall get on my pins enough for that."

"Isn't it funny?" said she. "Aunt Anne with her Palace of Peace and you with your invincible France. But, Rookie, you hear to me. Whatever you do with your own money, you do it your own way. Don't be a slacker."

Raven sat looking at her, a slow smile dawning. He rather liked Nan's taking him in hand.

"That's it, is it?" he asked, with a relish she was glad to see. "A slacker! so be it. If I'm a slacker, I am. I'm a conscientious objector.

What I object to is the universe, the pattern it's made on. I object to the way we're running it, and, being made as we are, I don't see how we can be expected to do anything but what we're doing. It's a perfectly logical proposition. And except for a few minor ch.o.r.es I've got to see to, I simply won't play."

Nan was thinking. She looked down at her hands, lying in her lap. Raven looked at them also and wondered, as he often had, since they came home, how such hands could have done the tasks she set them to. She looked up and met his eyes gravely with something imperative in hers. It is a way women have sometimes. They seem to be calling on the boy in man and bidding him take heed.

"I wouldn't," said she, "talk to d.i.c.k about going to Wake Hill."

"What would you do? Cut stick, and let him wonder what in the deuce it's all about?"

"I wouldn't talk; I'd write."

"Oh, write!--what's the difference?"

"If you talk, he'll say something that'll shut you up and you'll be just as far apart as you are to-day. If you write, you can tell him as much as you want to and no more. And the first thing he'll do will be to bring the letter to me."

"I see," said Raven. "And you'll interpret."

"I'll interpret. I can, Rookie. I know you, don't I? and I know d.i.c.k."

"You ought to," said Raven rashly again because he was again curious, "the man you're going to marry."

"Yes," said Nan calmly, rising, "the man I'm going to marry. Only"--her face, as she turned it to him, brimmed over with a childish sort of fun--"don't tell him that, Rookie. It's perfectly true I haven't promised him. And I don't mean to--yet."

"Quite right," said Raven, rising. He felt a distinct relief. He, too, wanted to see what d.i.c.k would make of himself. "You do your own telling."

"There he is," said Nan, "just as it is in a play. We've got to a climax and he comes in at the door. But, Rookie----" She stopped, for d.i.c.k was nearing in the hall, and Raven knew what she would have said. It was in both their minds. They hadn't finished their talk. It had merely strayed into another channel, or bolted and run away there. Aunt Anne's money and her Palace of Peace still stared them in the face. d.i.c.k put his head in at the door. He looked rather sheepish, as if his dignified going had been invalidated by this impetuous coming back, as if he couldn't live without Nan and she was bound to see through it.

"Well?" he said gruffly. "Talked out?"

They both laughed, with the sudden absurdity of it. How should they, their eyes questioned each other, ever be talked out, what with Aunt Anne and the universe and France?

"Absolutely," said Nan. "Good night, Rookie. Going to write your letter?

Come on, d.i.c.k."