"Proceed, dear," she said, laughingly.

He read, eliminating what was not necessary to make his point:

"'A race is worthless and contemptible if its men cease to work hard and, at need, to fight hard; and if its women cease to breed freely.

If the best cla.s.ses do not reproduce themselves the nation will, of course, go down.

"'When the ordinary decent man does not understand that to marry the woman he loves, as early as he can, is the most desirable of all goals; when the ordinary woman does not understand that all other forms of life are but makeshift subst.i.tutes for the life of the wife, the mother of healthy children; then the State is rotten at heart.

"'The woman who shrinks from motherhood is as low a creature as a man of the professional pacifist, or poltroon, type, who shirks his duty as a soldier.

"'The only full life for man or woman is led by those men and women who together, with hearts both gentle and valiant, face lives of love and duty, who see their children rise up to call them blessed, and who leave behind them their seed to inherit the earth.

"'No celibate life approaches such a life in usefulness. The mother comes ahead of the nun.

"'But if the average woman does not marry and become the mother of enough healthy children to permit the increase of the race; and if the average man does not marry in times of peace and do his full duty in war if need arises, then the race is decadent and should be swept aside to make room for a better one.

"'Only that nation has a future whose sons and daughters recognise and obey the primary laws of their racial being!'"

He closed the book and laid it on the piano.

"Now," he said, "either we're really a rotten and decadent race, and might as well behave like one, or we're sound and sane."

Something unusual in his voice--in the sudden grim whiteness of his face--disturbed Palla.

"I want you to marry me," he said. "You care for no other man. And if you don't love me enough to do it, you'll learn to afterward."

"Jim," she said gently, and now rather white herself, "that is an outrageous thing to say to me. Don't you realise it?"

"I'm sorry. But I love you--I need you so that I'm fit for nothing else.

I can't keep my mind on my work; I can't think of anybody--anything but you.... If you didn't care for me more or less I wouldn't come whining to you. I wouldn't come now until I'd entirely won your heart--except that--if I did--and if you refused me marriage and offered the other thing--I'd be about through with everything! And I'd know d.a.m.ned well that the nation wasn't worth the powder to blow it to h.e.l.l if such women as you betray it!"

The girl flushed furiously; but her voice seemed fairly under control.

"Hadn't you better go, Jim, before you say anything more?"

"Will you marry me?"

"No."

He stood up very straight, unstirring, for a long time, not looking at her.

Then he said "good-bye," in a low voice, and went out leaving her quite pale again and rather badly scared.

As the lower door closed, she sprang to the landing and called his name in a frightened voice that had no carrying power.

Later she telephoned to his several clubs. At eleven she called each club again; and finally telephoned to his house.

At midnight he had not telephoned in reply to the messages she had left requesting him to call her.

Her anxiety had changed to a vague bewilderment. Her dismayed resentment at what he had said to her was giving place to a strange and unaccustomed sense of loneliness.

Suddenly an overwhelming desire to be with Ilse seized her, and she would have called a taxi and started immediately, except for the dread that Jim might telephone in her absence.

Yet, she didn't know what it was that she wanted of him, except to protest at his att.i.tude toward her. Such a protest was due them both--an appeal in behalf of the friendship which meant so much to her--which, she had abruptly discovered, meant far more to her than she supposed.

At midnight she telephoned to Ilse. A sleepy maid replied that Miss Westgard had not yet returned.

So Palla called a taxi, pinned on her hat and struggled into her fur coat, and, taking her latch-key, started for Ilse's apartment, feeling need of her in a blind sort of way--desiring to listen to her friendly voice, touch her, hear her clear, sane laughter.

A yawning maid admitted her. Miss Westgard had dined out with Mr.

Estridge, but had not yet returned.

So Palla, wondering a little, laid aside her coat and went into the pretty living room.

There were books and magazines enough, but after a while she gave up trying to read and sat staring absently at a photograph of Estridge in uniform, which stood on the table at her elbow.

Across it was an inscription, dated only a few days back: "To Ilse from Jack, on the road to Asgard."

Then, as she gazed at the man's handsome features, for the first time a vague sense of uneasiness invaded her.

Of a gradually growing comradeship between these two she had been tranquilly aware. And yet, now, it surprised her to realise that their comradeship had drifted into intimacy.

Lying back in her armchair, her thoughts hovered about these two; and she went back in her mind to recollect something of the beginning of this intimacy;--and remembered various little incidents which, at the time, seemed of no portent.

And, reflecting, she recollected now what Ilse had said to her after the last party she had given--and which Palla had not understood.

What had Ilse meant by asking her to "wait"? Wait for what?... Where was Ilse, now? Why did she remain out so late with John Estridge? It was after one o'clock.

Of course they must be dancing somewhere or other. There were plenty of dances to go to.

Palla stirred restlessly in her chair. Evidently Ilse had not told her maid that she meant to be out late, for the girl seemed to have expected her an hour ago.

Palla's increasing restlessness finally drove her to the windows, where she pulled aside the shades and stood looking out into the silent night.

The night was cold and clear and very still. Rarely a footfarer pa.s.sed; seldom a car. And the stillness of the dark city increased her nervousness.

New York has rare phases of uncanny silence, when, for a s.p.a.ce, no sound disturbs the weird stillness.

The clang of trains, the feathery whirr of motors, the echo of footsteps, the immense, indefinable breathing vibration of the iron monster, drowsing on its rock between three rivers and the sea, ceases utterly. And a vast stillness reigns, mournful, ominous, unutterably sad.

Palla looked down into the empty street. The dark chill of it seemed to rise and touch her; and she shivered unconsciously and turned back into the lighted room.

It was two o'clock. Her eyes were heavy, her heart heavier. Why should everything suddenly happen to her in that way? Where had Jim gone when he left her? And who was it answered the telephone at his house when she had called up and asked to speak to him? It was a woman's voice--a maid, no doubt--yet, for an instant, she had fancied that the voice resembled his mother's.