"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?"
"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into men's keeping to work it as they pleased."
"Now, George, that is blasphemy."
"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket Providence," he said, and then he rose to go.
"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Dinner at Balcom's Works was at one o'clock.
"I'll come back to supper, if you'll let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a convert."
"Well, you may come back, on that condition."
"All right. If I don't come, you'll understand?"
He went away without kissing her, and she felt it a suspension of their engagement. It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a tremendous experience, and she was being equal to it. While she stood looking after him, her mother came out through one of the long windows, on to the veranda, with a catlike softness and vagueness.