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“Why—uh—why, how does anybody get through ’em? You’d have a good time—dances, and playin’ round and maybe children, and we’d run down to Palm Beach—”

“Yes. You’d permit me to go on doing what I always did till the war came. Nope. It isn’t good enough. I want to work. You wouldn’t let me, even in the house. There’d be maids, nurses. It’s not that I want a career. I don’t want to be an actress or a congresswoman. Perfectly willing to be assistant to some man. Providing he can really use me in useful work. No. You pre-war boys are going to have a frightful time with us post-war women. ”

“But you’ll get tired—”

“Oh, I know, I know! You and Father and Mother will wear me out. You-all may win. You and this house, this horrible sleek warm house that Mrs. —that she isn’t fit to come into! She that gave him—”

Her voice was rising, hysterical. She was bent in the big chair, curiously twisted, as though she had been wounded.

Eddie stroked her hair, then abruptly stalked out.

Theo sat marveling: “Did I really send Eddie away? Poor Eddie. Oh, I’ll write him. He’s right. Nice to think of brave maiden defiantly marrying poor hero. But they never do. Not in this house. ”

VIII

The deep courthouse bell awakening Theo to bewildered staring at the speckled darkness—a factory whistle fantastically tooting, then beating against her ears in long, steady waves of sound—the triumphant yelping of a small boy and the quacking of a toy horn—a motor starting next door, a cold motor that bucked and snorted before it began to sing, but at last roared away with the horn blaring—finally the distant “Extra! Extra!”

Her sleepy body protestingly curled tighter in a downy ball in her bed on the upper porch, but her mind was frantically awake as the clamor thickened. “Is it really peace this time? The armistice really signed?” she exulted.

In pleasant reasonable phrases the warm body objected to the cold outside the silk comforter. “Remember how you were fooled on Thursday. Oo-oo! Bed feels so luxurious!” it insisted.

She was a practical heroine. She threw off the covers. The indolent body had to awaken, in self-defense. She merely squeaked “Ouch!” as her feet groped for their slippers on the cold floor. She flung downstairs, into rubbers and a fur coat, and she was out on the walk in time to stop a bellowing newsboy.

Yes. It was true. Official report from Washington. War over.

“Hurray!” said the ragged newsboy, proud of being out adventuring by night; and “Hurray!” she answered him. She felt that she was one with awakening crowds all over the country, from the T Wharf to the Embarcadero. She wanted to make great noises.

The news had reached the almost-Western city of Vernon at three. It was only four, but as she stood on the porch a crush of motor cars swept by, headed for downtown. Bumping behind them they dragged lard cans, saucepans, frying pans. One man standing on a running board played Mr. Zip on a cornet. Another dashing for a trolley had on his chest a board with an insistent electric bell. He saw her on the porch and shouted, “Come on, sister! Downtown! All celebrate! Some carnival!”

She waved to him. She wanted to get out the electric and drive down. There would be noise—singing.

Four strange girls ran by and shrieked to her, “Come on and dance!”

Suddenly she was asking herself: “But do they know what it means? It isn’t just a carnival. It’s sacred. ” Sharply: “But do I know all it means, either? World-wide. History, here, now!” Leaning against the door, cold but not conscious that she was cold, she found herself praying.