feel just as mother does, only neither of us dares admit it--scarcely
even to ourselves."

"You almost hate what, Helen?"

"Oh, everything--the way we live, the people we know, the stupid things
I am expected to do. It all seems so useless--so futile--so--so--such a
waste of time."

The Interpreter was studying her with kindly interest.

"I never felt this way before brother went away. And during the war
everybody was so much excited and interested, helping in every way he
or she could. But now--now that it is over and John is safely home
again, I can't seem to get back into the old ways at all. Life seems to
have flattened out into a dull, monotonous round of nothing that really
matters."

The Interpreter spoke, thoughtfully, "Many people, I find, feel that
way these days, Helen."

"As for brother," she continued, "he is so changed that I simply can't
understand him at all. He is like a different man--just grinds away in
that dirty old Mill day after day, as if he were nothing more than a
common laborer who had to work or starve. In fact," she finished with
an air of triumph, "that is exactly what he says he is--simply a
laborer like--like Charlie Martin and the rest of them."

The Interpreter smiled.