CHAPTER XXXVII

Time, quickly passing, brought Mary to another wonderful morning in the Story of her life.  Even as her father’s death had broadened her outlook, so now Paul’s heroism gave her a deeper glance at the future, a more tolerant view of the past.

On the morning in question, Helen brought Wally to the office.  He was now entirely recovered, but Helen still mothered him, every touch a caress, every glance a look of love.  Mary grew very thoughtful as she watched them.  The next morning they were leaving for a tour of the Maine woods.

When they left, an architect called.

Under his arm he had a portfolio of plans for a Welfare Building which he had drawn exactly according to Mary’s suggestions.  As long as the idea had been a nebulous one—­drawn only in fancy and coloured with nothing stronger than conversation, she had liked it immensely; but seeing now precisely how the building would look—­how the space would be divided, she found herself shaking her head.

“It’s my own fault,” she said.  “You have followed out every one of my ideas—­but somehow—­well, I don’t like it:  that’s all.  If you’ll leave these drawings, I’ll think them over and call you up again in a few days.”

At Judge Cutler’s suggestion, Archey had been elected treasurer to take Burdon’s place.  Mary took the plans into his office and showed them to him.  They were still discussing them, sitting at opposite sides of his flat-top desk, when the twelve o’clock whistle blew.  A few minutes later, the four-hour workers passed through the gate, the men walking with their wives, the children playing between.

“I wonder how it’s going to turn out,” said Archey.

“I wonder ...” said Mary.  “Of course it’s too early to tell yet.  I don’t know....  Time will tell.”

“It was the only solution,” he told her.

“I wonder ...” she mused again.  “Anyhow it was something definite.  If women are really going to take up men’s trades, it’s only right that they should know what it means.  As long as we just keep talking on general lines about a thing, we can make it sound as nice as we like.  But when we try to put theory into practice ... it doesn’t always seem the same.

“Take these plans, for instance,” she ruefully remarked.  “I thought I knew exactly what I wanted.  But now that I see it drawn out to scale, I don’t like it.  And that, perhaps, is what we’ve been doing here in the factory.  We have taken a view of woman’s possible future and we have drawn it out to scale.  Everybody can see what it looks like now—­they can think about it—­and talk about it—­and then they can decide whether they want it or not....”

He caught a note in her voice that had a touch of emptiness in it.

“Do you know what I would do if I were you?” he gently asked.

She looked at him, his eyes eager with sympathy, his smile tender and touched with an admiration so deep that it might be called devotion.  Never before had Archey seemed so restful to her—­never before with him had she felt so much at home.