V
Valerie felt chilled when she read the note Dane had slipped under her door before leaving for Auckland. This erratic behaviour seemed so unnecessary. If he had had to go to town suddenly about a change in investments why had he not told her the day before? There was nothing disturbing about his having to go. But there was about the way he had done it. He was really carrying her own theories of independence much further than she carried them herself. And it seemed unfriendly.
She tried to console herself with thoughts of the day before, of the high mood he had been in, and of the fact that he really seemed better than she had seen him for some time. But something puzzled her. He had looked at her at times in such a curious way.
She tried to work that morning. She had put her novel aside, and was working disjointedly, jotting down in a note-book things she felt from day to day, her feelings about the war, stories of men going away, of women left behind, even some of her feeling about Dane. It did not satisfy her. It was at best something to pass the time. She was really frantic for action. She could picture herself leading groups of women, doing heroic things, working as few people could work. And here she was in a pampered garden, waited on by servants, her heaviest task the making of her own bed. She made up her mind the second day of Dane’s absence that when he came back she would join Mrs. Benton in the organizing of the women of Dargaville; anything now but this sitting around.
On the third day she got a letter from Dane, affectionate and humorous, telling her the latest news, and on the
