Johnny said, ’I should say not.  She’s been and gone and done it.  She’s got engaged to Hobart.  I heard from the mater this morning.’

I don’t think either of us spoke for a moment.  Then Juke gave a long whistle, and said, ‘Good Lord!’

‘Exactly,’ said Johnny, and grinned.

‘It’s no laughing matter,’ said Juke blandly.  ’Jane is imperilling her immortal soul.  She is yoking together with an unbeliever; she is forming an unholy alliance with mammon.  We must stop it.’

‘Stop Jane,’ said Johnny.  ‘You might as well try and stop a young tank.’

He meditated for a moment.

‘The funny thing is,’ he added, ’that we all thought it was Clare he was after.’

‘Now that,’ Juke said judicially, ’would have been all right.  Your elder sister could have had Hobart and the Daily Haste without betraying her principles.  But Jane—­Jane, the anti-Potterite ...  I say, why is she doing it?’

Johnny drew a letter from his pocket and consulted it.

’The mater doesn’t say. ...  I suppose the usual reasons.  Why do people do it?  I don’t; nor do you; nor does Gideon.  So we can’t explain. ...  I didn’t think Jane would do it either; it always seemed more in Clare’s line, somehow.  Jane and I always thought Clare would marry, she’s the sort.  Feminine and all that, you know.  Upon my word, I thought Jane was too much of a sportsman to go tying herself up with husbands and babies and servants and things.  What the devil will happen to all she meant to do—­writing, public speaking, and all the rest of it?  I suppose a girl can carry on to a certain extent, though, even if she is married, can’t she?’

‘Jane will,’ I said.  ’Jane won’t give up anything she wants to do for a trifle like marriage.’  I was sure of that.

‘I believe you’re right,’ Johnny agreed.  ’But it will be jolly awkward being married to Hobart and writing in the anti-Potter press.’

‘She’ll write for the Daily Haste,’ Juke said.  ’She’ll make Hobart give her a job on it.  Having begun to go down the steep descent, she won’t stop till she gets to the bottom.  Jane’s thorough.’

But that was precisely what I didn’t think Jane was.  She is, on the other hand, given to making something good out of as many worlds as she can simultaneously.  Martyrs and Irishmen, fanatics and Juke, are thorough; not Jane.

We couldn’t stay gossiping over the engagement any longer, so we left it at that.  The man lunching at the next table might have concluded that Johnny’s sister had got engaged to a scoundrel, instead of to the talented, promising, and highly virtuous young editor of a popular daily paper.  Being another member of the 1917, I dare say he understood.

But no one had tried to answer Juke’s question, ‘Why is she doing it?’ Johnny had supposed ‘for the usual reasons.’  That opens a probably unanswerable question.  What the devil are the usual reasons?