Burned Bridges

Carr sank into his chair with a sigh of relief.

"I am just about pickled, I do believe," he observed to the room at

large.

"So I see," Sophie commented impersonally. "Is there anything uncommon

about that? I am beginning to think prohibition will be rather a

blessing to you, Dad, when it comes."

"Huh!" Carr grunted. "I suppose one drink does lead to another. But I

don't need to be legally safe-guarded yet, thank you. My bibulosity is

occasional. When it becomes chronic I shall take to the woods."

"Sometimes I find myself wishing we had never come out of the woods,"

Sophie murmured.

"What?" Carr exclaimed. Then: "That's rich. You with a sure income

beyond your needs, in your own right, with youth and health and beauty,

with all your life before you, wishing to revert to what you used to say

was a living burial? That's equivalent to holding that the ostrich

philosophy is the true one--what you cannot see does not exist. That

ignorance is better than knowledge--that--that--Hang it, my dear, are

you going to turn reactionary? But that's a woman. Now why should--"

"Oh, don't begin one of your interminable, hair-splitting elucidations,"

Sophie protested. "I know it's showing weakness to desire to run away

from trouble. I don't know that I have any trouble to run from. I'm not

sure I should dodge trouble if I could. I was just voicing a stray

thought. We were happy at Lone Moose, weren't we, Dad?"

"After a fashion," Carr replied promptly. "As the animal is happy with

a full belly and a comfortable place to sleep. But we both craved a

great deal more than that of life."

"And we are not getting more," Sophie retorted. "When you come right

down to fundamentals we eat a greater variety of food, wear better

clothes, live on a scale that by our former standards is the height of

luxury. But not one of my dreams has come true. And you find solace in a

wine glass where you used to find it in books. Over in Europe men are

destroying each other like mad beasts. At home, while part of the nation

plays the game square, there's another part that grafts and corrupts and

profiteers and slacks to no end. It's a rotten world."

"By gad, you have got the blue glasses on to-night, and no mistake,"

Carr mused. "That's unmitigated pessimism, Sophie. What you need is a

vacation. Let somebody else run this women's win-the-war show for

awhile, and you take a rest. That's nerves."

"I can't. There is too much to do," Sophie said shortly. "I don't want

to. If I sat down and folded my hands these days I'd go crazy."

Carr grunted. For a minute neither spoke. Sophie lay back in her chair,

eyes half closed, fingers beating a slow rat-a-tat on the chair-arm.