“I didn’t mind being killed,” he laughed, in explanation of his sudden flight.  “But I didn’t like being so frightfully messed up in the process.  I want a chance to strike back when I’m cornered.  The Zeppelin game was too much like a rabbit-drive to suit me.”

As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of the spirit.  The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to be denied.  But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a bit judicial, always well poised.  He had his sympathies, but they did not appear vitalized by extravagances of feeling.  Yet here and there Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like brief flashes of sunlight through a somber forest.

“And the draft—­what do you think of that?” The question rose to her lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the way of convictions.

He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden refreshment: 

“It helps ... some of us.  There are many who can’t decide for themselves.  The obvious duty isn’t always the correct one.  In my case....”

He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim region of musing.  They both fell silent.  But Claire knew.  There was that haunting hope, almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get better.  That was what he was waiting for!  It might come to-morrow ... next week ... in a year ... never!  But when it did come he felt that he must be there, ready.  She wondered whether he loved his wife very much, and she found herself hoping that he did....  It would help, somehow ... yes, if that were so his sacrifice gained point.  On the other hand....  She put the thought away with a quick thrust, feeling that she had no right to such a speculation, and presently she was aware that they were swinging into Sausalito.

Stillman looked at his watch.  Twelve-thirty-five ... just five minutes late for the boat!  She could see that he was disturbed.

“I thought sure we’d get a lift,” he railed, tossing aside a mangled cigar.  “This is luck!...  I guess we’ll have to rout out the Sherwins.  It’s something of a pull up the hill, but any safe port in a storm, you know.”

“The Sherwins?”

“Another one of the Edington girls.  They have a bungalow at the very dizziest point in Sausalito.”

But Claire objected and held firm.  “I couldn’t think of it, Mr. Stillman.  No, really!...  Please don’t insist.”

They agreed on a lodging for Claire in a freshly painted but otherwise rather decrepit lodging-house, just north of the ferry-slip.  Its chief advantage was that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but respectable, and the suppressed grumbling of the old shrew whom they routed out confirmed their estimate.  She didn’t approve of couples who dragged God-fearing old women out of bed at unholy hours in the morning, and it was only the generous tip from Stillman and the assurance that he intended looking elsewhere for quarters for himself that reconciled her to her loss of sleep and the compromise with her convictions.