They represented, although she did not know it, the two divisions of men in love, the men who offer much and give little, the others who, out of a deep humility, offer little and give everything they have.

In the end, nothing was settled.  After he had gone Lily, went up to Elinor’s room.  She had found in Elinor lately a sort of nervous tension that puzzled her, and that tension almost snapped when Lily told her of her visit home, and of her determination to marry Louis within the next few days.  Elinor had dropped her sewing and clenched her hands in her lap.

“Not soon, Lily!” she said.  “Oh, not soon.  Wait a little—­wait two months.”

“Two months?” Lily said wonderingly.  “Why two months?”

“Because, at the end of two months, nothing would make you marry him,” Elinor said, almost violently.  “I have sat by and waited, because I thought you would surely see your mistake.  But now—­Lily, do you envy me my life?”

“No,” Lily said truthfully; “but you love him.”

Elinor sat, her eyes downcast and brooding.

“You are different,” she said finally.  “You will break, where I have only bent.”

But she said no more about a delay.  She had been passive too long to be able to take any strong initiative now.  And all her moral and physical courage she was saving for a great emergency.

Cardew Way was far from the center of town, and Lily knew nothing of the bomb outrages of that night.

When she went down to breakfast the next morning she found Jim Doyle pacing the floor of the dining room in a frenzy of rage, a newspaper clenched in his hand.  By the window stood Elinor, very pale and with slightly reddened eyes.  They had not heard her, and Doyle continued a furious harangue.

“The fools!” he said.  “Damn such material as I have to work with!  This isn’t the time, and they know it.  I’ve warned them over and over.  The fools!”

Elinor saw her then, and made a gesture of warning.  But it was too late.  Lily had a certain quality of directness, and it did not occur to her to dissemble.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked, and went at once to Elinor.  She had once or twice before this stood between them for Elinor’s protection.

“Everything is as happy as a May morning,” Doyle sneered.  “Your Aunt Elinor has an unpleasant habit of weeping for joy.”

Lily stiffened, but Elinor touched her arm.

“Sit down and eat your breakfast, Lily,” she said, and left the room.

Doyle stood staring at Lily angrily.  He did not know how much she had heard, how much she knew.  At the moment he did not care.  He had a reckless impulse to tell her the truth, but his habitual caution prevailed.  He forced a cold smile.

“Don’t bother your pretty head about politics,” he said.

Lily was equally cold.  Her dislike of him had been growing for weeks, coupled to a new and strange distrust.