her point of view as all the afternoon he had been try- ing to make her see his. For an hour the two people walked about and Clara talked. She forgot about the passage of time and the fact that she had not dined. Not wishing to talk of marriage, she talked instead of the possibility of friend- ship between men and women. As she talked her own mind seemed to her to have become clearer. " It's all foolishness your going on as you have," she declared. " I know how dissatisfied and unhappy you sometimes are. I often feel that way myself. Sometimes I think it's marriage I want. I really think I want to draw close to some one. I believe every one is hungry for that experience. We all want something we are not willing to pay for. We want to steal it or have it given us. That's what's the matter with me, and that's what's the matter with you." They came to the Woodburn house, and turning in stood on a porch in the darkness by the front door. At the back of the house Clara could see a light burn- ing. Her aunt and uncle were at the eternal figuring and knitting. They were finding a substitute for liv- ing. It was the thing Frank Metcalf was protesting against and was the real reason for her own constant secret protest. She took hold of the lapel of his coat, intending to make a plea, to urge upon him the idea of a friendship that would mean something to them both. In the darkness she could not see his rather heavy, sullen face. The maternal instinct became strong in her and she thought of him as a wayward, dis- satisfied boy, wanting love and understanding as she had wanted to be loved and understood by her father when life in the moment of the awakening of her worn-
[175]
