"And the engagement still holds?" I am no optimist.

"Before that we dined. Yes, I do not exaggerate. It was my suggestion. One
sees so much unhappiness now-a-days, and I wished to be quite sure we were
suited to one another."

"And you are convinced of the sincerity of the attachment?"

"Why, I feel for him as Mother does for the knife-and-boot boy, and Uncle
Stephen for the charlady. We cannot be separated. It would be monstrous."

I ceased to be articulate. Victorine suddenly became radiant.

"We must always be together--at any rate for the duration of the War, you
see. I eat under my meat and he is over. In flour and sugar--oh, how can I
confess it?--I _exceed_. He is far, far below his ration. Apart we are
failures; together we are perfect. We both saw it at once."

I realised suddenly the inevitability of this mutual bond.

"So marriage is the only thing?" I asked; but I was already conquered.

She assented with a regal air.

As I went away I saw a new and strange beauty in the problem of Food
Shortage.

* * * * *

SONGS OF FOOD PRODUCTION.