at an end when she received a diploma. Paul had patiently waited for her to overcome her first distrust, to conquer the pride which made her hold out against the personality that had flurried less fastidious women. But in the end it was inevitable they should be together, for he alone could give her glimpses of a civilization broader and richer than that of which she, as assistant principal of the local school, was the accredited representative.
Paul guessed that other girls twitted Phœbe for her interest in him, and in order to spare her had checked his first advances. He guessed, too, that his advent was responsible for a certain coolness between Phœbe and Wilfrid Fraser, who had paid attention to her for years. He had known Phœbe subtly defiant with the girls who were loudest in their war zeal, and he had observed, with sweetly painful concern, her distrust of him change gradually to trust, her edged retorts give way to earnest and intimate confidences. He knew that Phœbe's invalid mother disapproved of his iconoclasm. He knew that Bob Meddar, whom he liked, had warned Phœbe against accepting at their face value the ideas of a confessed visionary—and, worst of all, he knew that Bob's warning was fearfully well-founded. Yet he was drawn.
Phœbe wept helplessly when Bob went overseas. A few months later she saw Wilfrid off to Ottawa, where he had obtained a war post that exempted him from action for which he was physically disqualified. Paul met Phœbe a few days later at the post office, and their interview was a little strained.
He had found a note from Mark Laval, written just before embarking. It was short, but glowed with enthusiasm, as Mark's eyes had glowed in the days when he declaimed romantic verse under the cherry tree. "One of them there dumdums will probably get me," Mark concluded, "but it will be better than a tree falling on me."
