"I love to hear you say that, it means so much to me. Don't think
I haven't a sense of proportion. I have. In all this universal
slaughter and massacre, a woman's life counts as much as that of a
mosquito." She freed an arm and snapped her fingers. "But to the
woman herself, her own life can't help being of some value. Such
as it is, I want to give it all, every bit of it, to Willie. He
shall have everything, everything, everything that I can give
him."

I looked into the young, drawn, pleading face long and earnestly.
No longer was I mystified. I remembered her talk with me a couple
of days before, and I read her riddle.

She had struck gold. She knew it. Gold of a man's love. Gold of a
man's strength. Gold of a man's honour. Gold of a man's stainless
past. Gold of a man's radiant future. And though she wore the
mocking face and talked the mocking words of the woman who
expected such a man to "eat out of her hand," she knew that never
out of her hand would he eat save that which she should give him
in honourable and wifely service. She knew that. She was
exquisitely anxious that I should know it too. Floodgates of
relief were expressed when she saw that I knew it. Not that I,
personally, counted a scrap. What she craved was a decent human
soul's justification of her doings. She craved recognition of her
action in casting away base metal forever and taking the pure gold
to her heart.

"Tell me that I am doing the right thing, dear," she said, "and
to-morrow I'll be the happiest woman in the world."