“I wonder,” said one of the women afterwards in discussing her, “when Mrs. Winters presents herself at the heavenly gate and there is asked what she has done to make the world better, and when she has to confess that she has never done anything outside of her own house, and nothing there except agreeable things, such as entertaining friends who next week will entertain her, and embroidering ‘insets’ for corset-covers for dainty ladies who already have corset-covers enough to fill a store-window,—­I wonder if she will be able to put it over on the heavenly doorkeeper that ‘the Doctor would not let her.’  If all I hear is true, Saint Peter will say, ’Who is this person you call the Doctor?’ and when she explains that the Doctor was her husband, Saint Peter will say, ’Sorry, lady, we cannot recognize marriage relations here at all—­it is unconstitutional, you know—­there is no marrying or giving in marriage after you cross the Celestial Meridian.  I turned back a woman this morning who handed in the same excuse—­there seems to have been a good deal of this business of one person’s doing the thinking for another on earth, but we can’t stand for it here.  I’m sorry, lady, but I can’t let you in—­it would be as much as my job is worth.’”

Upon this happy household, as upon some others not so happy, came the war!—­and Dr. Winters’s heroic soul responded to the trumpet’s call.  He was among the first to present himself for active service in the Overseas Force.  When he came home and told his wife, she got the first shock of her life.  It was right, of course, it must be right, but he should have told her, and she remonstrated with him for the first time in her life.  Why had he not consulted her, she asked, before taking such a vital step?  Then Dr. Winters expressed in words one of the underlying principles of his life.  “A man’s first duty is to his country and his God,” he said, “and even if you had objected, it would not have changed my decision.”

Mrs. Winters looked at him in surprise.  “But, Frederick,” she cried, “I have never had any authority but you.  I have broken promises when you told me to, disappointed people, disappointed myself, but never complained—­thinking in a vague way that you would do the same for me if I asked you to—­your word was my law.  What would you think if I volunteered for a nurse without asking you—­and then told you my country’s voice sounded clear and plain above all others?”

“It is altogether different,” he said brusquely.  “The country’s business concerns men, not women.  Woman’s place is to look after the homes of the nation and rear children.  Men are concerned with the big things of life.”

Mrs. Winters looked at him with a new expression on her face.  “I have fallen down, then,” she said, “on one part of my job—­I have brought into the world and cared for no children.  All my life—­and I am now forty years of age—­has been given to making a home pleasant for one man.  I have been a housekeeper and companion for one person.  It doesn’t look exactly like a grown woman’s whole life-work, now, does it?”