'Friends!' re-echoed Isabel. And she looked again at Bertie. He met her
eyes with a furtive, haggard look; his eyes were as if glazed with
misery.

'I'm so glad,' she said, in sheer perplexity.

'Yes,' said Maurice.

He was indeed so glad. Isabel took his hand with both hers, and held it
fast.

'You'll be happier now, dear,' she said.

But she was watching Bertie. She knew that he had one desire--to escape
from this intimacy, this friendship, which had been thrust upon him. He
could not bear it that he had been touched by the blind man, his insane
reserve broken in. He was like a mollusk whose shell is broken.




_MONKEY NUTS_


At first Joe thought the job O.K. He was loading hay on the trucks, along
with Albert, the corporal. The two men were pleasantly billeted in a
cottage not far from the station: they were their own masters, for Joe
never thought of Albert as a master. And the little sidings of the tiny
village station was as pleasant a place as you could wish for. On one