Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/321

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had opened secret doors for her. She was in Paris. She was in Rome. She was—of all places—Salonica. How did she accomplish it? He could only surmise, and the only surmise that occurred to him was an unpleasant one. But there she was—in the thick of it. Drinking her fill of excitement—feeding the passion of her eternal restlessness; getting, George hoped, her fill of adventure.

And his boy! Where was he?

Safe in England! So Mrs. Gilman's letter had assured Mary Judson, and besides the heartache of loss and loneliness George's proud spirit chafed especially at this. His boy—his son—why should he be in England, a foreign country and war-encompassed? why dependent upon the care of hired strangers? Why, some of these air raids or something—but there he was, and his mother was still away upon her quest of the Garden of Eden, while the covenant George Judson had made with himself forbade him to interfere, forbade him to do anything but wait.

He kept the covenant. He remained in America. He never closed the Indian Village home. Out of it he came and went to his daily work. The servants stayed on. The cream-and-blue room was as it had always been. Mrs. George Judson was merely away. She might return at any time.

Lonely but proud, suffering but self-contained,