Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/352

 had nearly ruined me. But I am cured, I think; at least I am improved. I have learned to work, George. Feel my hands!"

He took them reverently in his. The palms were hard, the fingers roughened; he lifted them to his lips and kissed them. She went on:

"In the midst of all that woe and distress over there I found the impulse to work; I discovered the thrilling, absorbing pleasure that there is in work. But I was so ignorant I didn't know how to work at first. With all my supposed accomplishments I was unfit for anything useful in a world where suddenly nothing but useful things were needed. But I think I may tell you that I have learned. King Albert was good enough to say that I had been rather useful, and he gave me a bit of ribbon to remember his words by. There is also a trinket in my trunk that the French pinned on my breast. And I hear one is coming from the British. I am not so ashamed of that as of some things."

George leaned back and resurveyed his wife with a kind of awe. No wonder he had discerned in her something that was new and more superior even than those old superiorities which had so impressed and fascinated him in times past. But she was feeling a little exalted and inspired.

"You were right, George, to work," she told him. "The world is falling to pieces. It needs