A present!

He could not afford it, but it must be done. What else could he do? He felt remarkably helpless. He felt about cautiously and intimately in his pocket, knowing with exactitude all that was there. It was not much. On Fridays he now banked half his weekly salary against such demands as rent, furniture instalments and so on. Thirty shillings he gave to Marie; ten he kept. This was Tuesday.

He withdrew his hand with something in it—two half-crowns. He would lunch light for the next three days.

"Darling," he said, with a slight break in his voice, so anxious he was to propitiate the pale, pretty girl who brooded at him from the head of the table, "look here! Do something to please me. When I'm out on the spree to-night let me think of your having a good time too. Why not ring up Miss Winter and get her to go to the theatre with you? Here's two seats."

A slight flush stole into Marie's cheeks.

"Oh, Osborn," she said, "but—"

"What?"

"Can you afford it?"

"Blow 'afford'!" said Osborn largely, placing the half-crowns before her, "we must do absolutely anything to prevent you from getting wretched."

She took the money up, half hesitating. She read the wistfulness in his face, but she felt rather wistful too.

"Thank you, Osborn," she murmured; "it'll be lovely. Julia's sure to come. But, Osborn—"

"What?"

"Some evening you'll take me yourself, won't you?"

"Rather!"

"Shall I save this till to-morrow?"

"No, no!" he cried. "To-day's when you want a tonic, not to-morrow. Go and get your tonic, Mrs. Osborn. Go and enjoy yourself!"

He was restored to content.

"I must go," he said, jumping up. "Let me kiss you. We're friends, aren't we, darling? You'll try not to hate the work so very much? When I get my rise it will make a lot of difference."

Then they clung together, kissing and whispering, and the cream walls and the golden-brown curtains were as beautiful to them as ever.

"Be a happy girl!" he cried, before he shut the front door.

"I am!" she called back, and he was gone.

She went down gaily, in spite of her weariness, and used the hall-porter's telephone to ring up Julia. Miss Winter would come and was very pleased, thank you. Marie went upstairs again, the ascent making her breathless.

The stairs and the landings were grey stone, uncarpeted, for this was the cheapest block of flats in the road. Oh, money, money! Accursed, lovable stuff!

Marie sat down, panting, in her kitchen. A mist rose before her eyes; she shut them and took a long breath; her head was light and dizzy. She began to be afraid.

An angel, in the guise of Mrs. Amber, knocked upon the front door. Marie dragged along the corridor, and could have wept once more for sheer relief at seeing so irreplaceable, so peculiarly comforting a person as her own mother upon the threshold. But she restrained herself with a great effort from the relief.

"Well, duck," said Mrs. Amber cheerfully, with that wise eye upon her girl's face, "I was out and I just thought I'd run in and see how you were. You're not too busy for me, love? Ah, you've overdone it and you look very pale."

She sat in Osborn's easychair in the dining-room. She was stout and solid, a comforting rock upon which the waves of trouble might fret and break in vain, for she had weathered her storms long ago. But Marie refrained from going to her and laying her head in her lap and crying like a little girl. She was twenty-five, married and worldly, with great things upon her shoulders. Instead of going to that true rock of ages, the mother, for shelter she sat down opposite, composedly, in the companion chair, and answered:

"There's a good deal to do in a home."

"Ah, you've found that out?" said Mrs. Amber regretfully. "We all find it out sooner or later. But a little domestic work shouldn't make a girl of your age look so pale and tired as you do. How do you feel, love?"

"Ragged," said Marie, "and—and awf'ly limp."

A great question was crying in Mrs. Amber's heart, but she was too tactful to pursue it. Modern girls were not lightly to be comprehended; she knew well that she did not understand her own daughter, and young people kept their secrets just as long as they thought they would.

"You ought to rest, my dear," she said hesitatingly. "I should lie down on that nice couch of yours every day after lunch, if I were you. A few minutes make all the difference, I assure you."

"I never used to rest," said Marie.

Mrs. Amber continued her matronly diplomacy:

"No, duck; but that was different. It's so different—"

"What is, mother?"

"When you're married, dear. You should rest a bit."

"I don't know what you mean, mother," said Marie.

"Just that, love," Mrs. Amber replied soothingly, "only that you should rest. It's wiser and it will make a great difference to you."

"I can't think what you mean, mother. I don't see why being married should alter one."

Mrs. Amber looked into the fire and said slowly: "Well, duck, it does. Doesn't it?"

Now Marie was conscious of an overpowering irritation. These old wives' tales! These matronly saws! How stupid they were! How meaningless, foundationless and sickening! She did not reply to Mrs. Amber's question, but stirred restlessly in her chair, swinging her foot, and said:

"Well, it's after twelve, and we may as well have some lunch. I'll just run—"

"No, love, you won't!" Mrs. Amber exclaimed, showing considerable vivacity. "I'm going to take you straight away to lie down on that nice couch, and I'll find the lunch myself, and we'll have it on a tray together. Now!"

"There isn't a fire in the drawing-room."

"I'll soon put a match to it, dear."

"Then we'll let this fire out," said Marie, after a pause.

Mrs. Amber hesitated, too.

"It's quite right to be careful," she replied.

"After all," said Marie, her irritation breaking out, too rebellious for all bonds, "I don't want it, mother. I'll only have to do the grate to-morrow; two grates instead of one. That's all. Such is life!"

Mrs. Amber looked into the fire.

"I'll tell you what," said she slowly. "You lie down on your bed. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. There's a gas fire there, and we'll have that."

"There are such things as gas bills, too."

"And a time to worry over them," said Mrs. Amber tartly; "but this isn't the time. You're going to be comfortable, and I'm going to make you so. You'll come along with me right now, my duck, and in five minutes you'll say what a wise old woman you've got for a mother."

Suddenly Marie leaned upon her mother and obeyed. She was lying on her bed under the pink quilt, and Mrs. Amber had her hat and coat and walking-shoes off, and the gas fire began to purr, and a heavenly comfort visited her. She knew reluctantly that these matrons were horribly wise women, after all. She looked into her mother's eyes, and saw there the question which cried in her heart, but she could not read it. It was too old for her.

Mrs. Amber said equably:

"Now I'll run into the kitchen and find what I shall find, my dear. You're not to trouble yourself to think and tell me what; I was housekeeping before you were born. And meanwhile, if I were you, I'd undo my frock and take off my corsets and be really comfortable. You be a good girl, dear, and do as you're told just this once, to please your silly old mother."

Docilely Marie sat up, unhooked her trim skirt-band, and unfastened her corsets. At once she felt lightened. How wise these dreadful matrons were! She did more; she cast her skirt and blouse aside with the corsets, and when Mrs. Amber returned she found her lying rest fully under the eiderdown, untrammelled, in thin petticoat and camisole.

"Eggs?" said Marie, craning her neck to look. "They were for Osborn's breakfast—two boiled eggs, mother."

"Well, they're poached now, duck," said Mrs. Amber; "they've gone to glory. Let Osborn have bacon; there's half a dozen rashers in your larder."

"He had bacon this morning."

"Let him have it again," said the comfortable lady.

"Julia's coming to dinner to-night," Marie confided to her mother. "Osborn's dining with Mr. Rokeby, but he's sending us both to the theatre. Isn't it kind of him?"

Mrs. Amber nodded smilingly.

"He hates me to be dull," said Marie.

Again Mrs. Amber nodded smilingly; she thought what a make-believe world these young brides lived in, and then she sighed.

All that afternoon she tended Marie, and gave her tea, and fulfilled her offer of setting the dinner forward before she went away, with the inquiry still in her heart.

Marie was better.

She rose from her bed about six o'clock, pleased as a cat with the warm room, and set about the business of her toilet. Sitting down to the dressing-table, she looked long and earnestly at her face; the rest she had taken had plumped and coloured it again, but there was a something, a kind of frailty, a blue darkness under the eyes. Perhaps it made her look less pretty? She was inclined to fret over it a trifle. To counteract it she dressed her hair with a fluffy softness unusual to her trim style; she took immense pains over her finger-nails and put on her best high frock. She hurried over her preparations, having been reluctant to leave her bed till the last possible moment. Mrs. Amber had laid the dinner-table, but there were still things to do.

"Some day I shall keep an awf'ly good parlour-maid," Marie promised herself.

She went in to criticise and retouch her mother's painstaking arrangements. She grew flushed and irritated over the cooking.

"And a good cook," she added. "What dreams!"

Julia looked a good deal at Marie during dinner in the delusive light of the shaded candles, and at last she said:

"You're thinner. And there's something about you—I don't know what it is. You are almost fragile."

"I manage this flat entirely without help, you know," said Marie, looking round the speckless dining-room proudly.

"That ought not to do it," replied Julia, dismissing domestic work with a contemptuous wave of the hand. "Are you worrying?"

"Worrying?" Marie repeated. "What about?"

"Oh, anything."

"I have nothing to worry over."

"Blessed woman!" replied Julia, diving into the freak pocket of an expensive garment bought with her own money. "May I begin to smoke?"

"Let me get cigarettes," said Marie, springing up for Osborn's box, which lay on the mantelpiece behind her.

"Always carry my own, thanks," said Julia, brandishing the cigarette-case she had produced.

The sudden movement she had made gave Marie a curious sensation; Julia and the room and the red fire swam around her; her brain was numb and dizzy; she staggered and caught at her chair-back.

"Oh!" she gasped. "I feel so—so—"

"What?" exclaimed the other girl, springing up.

Marie sank into her chair.

"I was so giddy—and faint, Julia."

Julia drew her chair close to Marie's, put down her yet unlighted cigarette, and looked at her friend shrewdly.

"Look here, kiddy," she began, with a softness Marie had never heard in her voice before. Then she stopped and asked: "Where's the brandy?"

"There isn't any," said Marie in a far-away voice; "there's only Osborn's whisky, and that's horrid. I'll be all right soon. Make the coffee, dear, will you? And make it strong."

Julia not only made the coffee strong, but she made it very quickly; she had a wonderfully quiet, efficient way of accomplishing things. The coffee stimulated Marie and steadied the erratic beating of her heart.

"That's better," she said.

Then Julia was modern enough to ask without preliminary that question which had asked in Mrs. Amber's elderly heart all day.

"Marie, are you going to have a baby?"

Marie could not have been more confused and confounded.

"I!" she stammered. "Have a baby! I never thought of such a thing!"

"It's not an unknown event," said Julia; "it has been done before. Think!"

Marie thought.

"Julia," she whispered, hushed, "perhaps—"

"You must know—or you can make a good guess."

Marie began to tremble. "I've been feeling so simply awful; I couldn't think what was the matter with me, but I—I believe you may be right. I shouldn't be surprised—"

Julia drew at her cigarette savagely; tears were in her eyes; something hurt her and she resented it.

"Shall you be pleased?" she asked.

"Pleased? I—don't—know."

"Will your husband be pleased?"

"I don't know."

"People seem to run about anyhow in the dark," said Julia thoughtfully.

Marie blushed. "Well, we'd never made any sort of plan."

"I think it would be lovely to have a baby," said Julia defiantly.

The challenge called forth an answering thrill in Marie; a force which she had not known she possessed leapt to meet it; she felt warm and glowing, tremulously excited and happy.

"So do I!" she breathed. "Oh, Julia, I wish I knew for certain. I must know."

"Go and see a doctor," said Julia; "he'd tell you."

"When?"

"When you like. I know one whose surgery hours are eight till nine-thirty."

"Oh, if I could only know before Osborn comes home to-night!"

"Let's go."

"Now?"

"Now."

Marie's mind flitted to its former anxieties of the purse, which she did not wish to reveal to Julia sitting there so well-dressed in the gown that she so easily had paid for. Theatre or doctor? Doctor or theatre? Which should it be?

She glanced dissemblingly at the clock.

"I don't know if I've time. We ought to be starting to The Scarlet Pimpernel."

"Chuck the theatre," said Julia. "I don't mind. This is a far greater business. Come along; I'll take you."

Light and glory flamed in Marie's heart.

"Don't you really mind?"

"My dear kid, I wouldn't let you go to the theatre tonight. You'll come and see that doctor, and then sit here in your easychair and rest quietly."

Marie's feet were no longer leaden as they carried her into her bedroom to fling on coat and hat. She was consumed by a great wonder. Could it be?

She counted all her money hastily into her bag and rejoined Julia. They went out, walked to the end of the road and boarded a car, but it was Julia who paid the fares while Marie sat dreaming beside her. It was not far to the doctor's door.

Marie did not know how to begin, but found the way in which doctors helped one was wonderful. In three minutes he had the story, and was twinkling at her with cheery interest, though as far as he was concerned it was the oldest, ordinariest story in the world, which invariably ended by calling him out of bed in the middle of some wet night, after a day of particular worry.

He asked her all about herself, where she lived, if she got up early, if she was busy, if she frivolled, and arrived at a mental summary of her circumstances. The circumstances were as old and ordinary as the story, but her pretty face and wavy hair, her childish form and dainty clothes, made him wish for a moment that she could have kept out of the struggle.

He could not say to her: "Well, if you feel very tired and faint in the mornings, breakfast in bed; if you feel walking too much for you at the moment, use your car; tempt your appetite; nourish yourself well. And later, when the spring comes, we must tell your husband to give you some nice week-ends at the sea." But, taking her hand and patting it kindly, he substituted this: "Well, Mrs. Kerr, I'm glad to hear that you've plenty to occupy yourself; it's a great thing to keep busy, specially at these times. As a matter of fact, there's no finer exercise than a little normal housework. And you must walk, too; that walk to market in the mornings is just splendid. As for your appetite, you must try not to get faddy; it's a woman's duty to keep up her strength, you know. I congratulate you most heartily on the good news I have just been able to give you."

"Thank you," said Marie, frightened but exultant, "and may I—what is the fee?"

"Five shillings, please," he replied, after a slight pause.

Then Marie was out again in the waiting-room with Julia, to whom she nodded mysteriously, and whose hand she squeezed. The doctor escorted both girls to the door, and looked after them for a moment; but it was an ordinary story, and the world must go round.

Julia and Marie walked all the way home, talking of what was going to happen next September.

They sat for a long while on the hearthrug in the dining-room when they reached home, talking about next September; and when at last Julia left, Marie still sat there hoping and planning, thinking of this perfect flat with a baby in it, and longing for Osborn's return to share the unparalleled news.

She had seen little, intimately, of babies; in the streets and parks she met them, and said: "What sweets! What precious things!" And she had thought more than once how beautiful it would be to own one, sitting in its well-built perambulator with the clean white lacy covers and cushions, and the starched nurse primly wheeling it.

There would be knitting to do, too; endless shawls, swallowing up pounds of the best white wool; and fleecy boots and caps and vests. When the next housekeeping allowance was paid, some of it should be stealthily diverted to this delicious end.

The clock struck eleven; for some while now Marie had ceased to notice how musical was its sound, as compared with other people's clocks, but to-night she noticed it anew. It was like little silver bells pealing; there ought to be birth-bells as well as wedding-bells.

Osborn was late, but Marie waited up for him, untired. She mended the fire, for he might come in cold, and they were not going to bed yet. No! They must sit and discuss next September. How would Osborn receive the news? What did men really think about these things? It was impossible they could feel the full measure of women's gladness, but in part, surely, they shared it?

At twelve Osborn came in, fresh and pink from the cold outside, with a hilarious eye, and a flavour of good whisky on his breath. He was in great spirits and could have ragged a judge. But as he took off coat and muffler in the hall, displaying himself in dinner clothes, there came creeping out to him from the dining-room, softly as a mouse, but with eyes bright as all the moon and stars, his wife. She had about her an air of lovely mystery, about which Osborn was still too jolly to concern himself. But she looked so beautiful that he caught her to him, and kissed her many times.

"You ripping little kid!" he said fondly, "have you waited up for me? Or have you only just got in?"

"I waited up for you, dear."

"Is there a fire?" asked Osborn.

"A good one."

They went into the dining-room and sat down, Osborn in his chair, she on the hearthrug beside him, and she let him tell his story first, so that afterwards all his attention should be rapt on hers. He said gaily: "I've had a ripping evening. Desmond was in his very best form, and he'd got two more fellows there, and we were a jolly lot, I assure you, my kid. By Jove! don't I wish I belonged to that club! I've half a mind to get Desmond to put me up. He would, like a shot. We had an awf'ly decent dinner; they give you some dinner at that club. We drank toasts; you'd like to hear about that, wouldn't you? That old one, you know: 'Our sweethearts and wives; and may they never meet!'"

Osborn laughed.

"I've had a nice evening, too," said Marie, leaning against the caressing hand.

"That's good," said Osborn. "Miss Winter came and you had dinner here, I suppose. What did you see?"

"We didn't go to the theatre."

"Not go!" said Osborn, "how was that? You weren't seedy again, were you, kid?"

"Rather," Marie murmured, "so Julia took me to a doctor instead."

"My dear!" Osborn cried.

"Osborn," said Marie, looking up at him, "we—we're going to have a baby."

"The deuce we are!" Osborn exclaimed abruptly, and he sat back and looked down at her sparkling face incredulously.

"You're glad?" she asked.

Osborn pulled himself sharply together. He said to Rokeby afterwards: "I believe it's the biggest shock of a chap's life. Awful good news and all that, of course." But now he was concerned only with Marie, that pretty frail thing so joyously taking upon her shoulders what seemed to him so vague and dreadful a burden, and for the moment he was aghast for her.

"Are you?" he stammered.

"I think it's lovely," she murmured.

"Then I'm glad," said Osborn; "if you're glad, I am, you dear, sweet, best girl. But tell me all the doctor said, angel, and just what we're to do and everything."

"We don't do anything till next September."

"Is it to be next September?"

"Yes," said Marie, trembling a little.



CHAPTER VII

DISILLUSION

Osborn had to tell Desmond Rokeby; he simply couldn't help it. They met at a quick lunch counter, an unusual meeting, for Rokeby lunched almost invariably at his club. As Osborn ate his sandwiches and drank his ale he was looking sideways at Rokeby all the time, and feeling, somehow, how futile he was, how worthless bachelors were to the world; and presently, when the space around them had cleared, and the white-capped server had moved away, he almost whispered:

"I say, Desmond, there's great news at my place."

Rokeby looked into Osborn's eager face.

"I wonder," said he, "if I could give a guess."

"I know you couldn't, old chap," said Osborn; "the surprise simply bowled me over."

Rokeby had already guessed right, but he had the tact and kindness not to say so; he had known men's pleasure in the telling before.

"Are you going to tell me?" he asked.

"Am I not, old man?" said Osborn, looking at the colour of his ale with a kind of smiling remoteness. "Well ... this is it ... how does one put it?... Well, here it is. Next September there'll be three people instead of two at No. 30 Welham Mansions."

"By Jove!" said Rokeby. "You must be awf'ly pleased!"

"Simply off my head! So's Marie."

He did not bank his two pounds that week, but kept them in his pocket. They need not spend both, but one Marie must have. And when he went home that afternoon, having asked permission to leave early, for a family purpose, and when he put the usual 30s. into his wife's hand, he cried:

"You're coming out shopping, Mrs. Kerr. You're coming out to buy yards and yards of whatever it is. And why mayn't we do a little dinner as well? You're to be kept cheerful."

She had been feeling pathetic all day, and she was full of pleasure at this. She hugged Osborn and lavished on him all her peculiar pet endearments, and ran to change into her best suit and furs. They went out together, very happy, and town lay spread before them, as if for their delight. It was scarcely yet full dusk, the sky was like opals and the streets were just becoming grey, the lamps starring them. The cold was crisp, and women in short skirts, trim boots, and big furs stepped briskly, their faces rosy. Osborn had his hand under the arm of a woman as trimly shod, as nicely-furred as any they met, and, as well, as being proud and thrilled with his new significance, he was proud of her. He liked men to glance away from the girls they escorted at Marie's face; and he liked to think: "Yes, you admire her, don't you? That little girl you're with—you're taking her out and spending your money on her and making an ass of yourself, and she don't care tuppence for you. But this beautiful woman I'm taking out is my wife, and she loves me."

Osborn was led, dazzled, into labyrinthine shops; he stood with Marie before long counters, while she inspected fine fabrics and, drawing off her glove, felt them critically with her fine hand. He watched her eagerly and devotedly, as if he read the concentration of her thoughts, and he imagined the thoughts to be these:

"Is this soft enough for him? Is this delicate enough for my baby's body? Nothing harsh shall touch my darling; he must have the best, and the best is not good enough for him. We will buy the most beautiful things in the world for my son."

And she ordered the lengths in a voice which cooed; she bought lawn and flannel, and great skeins of wool, and lace fit for fairies; and she sought, as if trying to remember the persecution of the purse, for bargains in blue ribbon, but by that time Osborn was too exalted to permit bargaining. He, too, was saying within himself:

"Shan't my boy have the best? When he's little and weak shan't I win it for him? And when he's grown and strong, won't he win it for himself, by Jove!"

He bought the blue ribbon.

They had spent one of the two pounds, and there seemed very little for it, of those fine things fit for a baby; but Marie stopped short after the spending of that sum. "It's enough to begin on," she urged; "when I've finished with that I'll get more." And she whispered, when the attendant's back was turned: "I shall squeeze it out of the thirty shillings all right, Osborn. I shall put by every week."

"Then," Osborn replied in the same sotto voce, "if you won't spend more for your baby, you darling, you'll be taken out to dinner, because I love you so; and you're to have a good time and be happy. I'm to keep you cheerful."

They chose one of the smallest West End restaurants, where they spent what Marie called a dream of an evening. Her languors evaporated in that subtle air, her eyes brightened, her cheeks glowed; she could face right into the teeth of the coming storm, and do no more than laugh at it. How good it was to be alive, and how alive she was! She had two lives. She was that most vital of all creatures, the expectant mother. She felt vaguely as if God had granted to her a great and new power.

The next morning the sensation of power had vanished. She was only a tired and nervous girl with a nasty feeling of nausea on her tongue. Once more Osborn brought her tea, and she sipped it leaning back on her pillow; as she stretched out an arm for it she caught sight of her face in the glass and sank back again. It was so tired and fretted, and the freshness of her skin seemed lost. How she wished she need not get up! She dreaded the day with its small and insistent exactions.

She was conscious of a fierce irritation with petty things.

Osborn could hardly eat breakfast himself when he saw how sick and sorry she was; he watched her efforts to eat a piece of dry toast and tried to comfort.

"When I saw the doctor," he said, "he told me this feeling of yours would only last two or three months."

"'Only'!" said Marie despairingly, "'only'!" She recalled Julia to him faintly, when she exclaimed: "I wonder how you men would like to feel sick and faint and ragged-out for 'only' three months!"

He hung his head.

"Well, we can't help it," he pleaded, half guiltily.

"I know," she whispered, with a sob in her throat, "but don't say 'only.'"

Osborn left home somewhat earlier than usual that morning. That sort of half-guilty feeling made him glad to go. It wasn't his fault, was it, that Nature had matters thus arranged? He agreed with his wife that it was bad management, but he couldn't help it. He was glad that, as he left, she asked him to do something for her; glad that he was able to do it.

When he had gone, Marie did a very wise thing, though he would have thought it a foolish one. She lay down and cried. She cried till she could cry no longer. She lay there some while after her tears had ceased, as if their fount had dried, and she adapted her outlook, as well as she was able, to these unforeseen, surprising and dismaying conditions.

She was the victim of the pretty and glossy storybook, the sentimental play, and of a light education. None of these things had prepared her for the realities she was undergoing; the story-book ended glossily with the marriage and happy expectations of a wonder-struck young couple. In book and play the heavenly child simply happened; no one felt miserably sick, ferociously irritable, or despairingly weary because of its coming. There had been no part of her education which had warned her of natural contingencies. She now saw that for her blessing she must pay, and pay heavily maybe, with her body.

She argued with herself a little fractiously on the escape of men. They had children without suffering; marriage without tears. Was it fair? Oh, was it in any sense equal or fair?

* * * * *

The little clock struck 6.30. Osborn was due, and dinner not yet preparing. Marie ran to the kitchen. "Goodness!" she said to herself, "it's endless! Life's nothing but getting meals. Is eating worth while?" She hurried around the flat till she was tired again, but hasten as she might, Osborn arrived before the cooking was done.

She was changing her gown when he appeared at the door of their room; she had not yet lowered the standard she had set for the ever-dainty wife prepared to charm her lord.

"Hallo, kiddie!" said Osborn, his voice rather tired. "I'm awf'ly hungry. Had a quick lunch. Is dinner ready?"

"No, it isn't," she replied sharply; "and what's more, it won't be for another half-hour."

"Well, you might hurry it."

"I've been hurrying; I'm sick of hurrying, and sick of getting meals."

The door slammed. She swung round with raised eyebrows, hands up to her hair, which she was dressing.

Osborn was gone. She heard him entering the bathroom noisily.

"Temper," she said aloud. "Temper!"

There was a big blank wall, ugly, insurmountable, cutting right across the garden of married life.



CHAPTER VIII

BABY

Marie awoke Osborn very early on a September morning; she leaned upon her elbow, gazing over to his bed, with terror in her eyes.

"Osborn," she gasped, "fetch the doctor! Telephone the nurse! The time's come, and I'm so frightened. You won't leave me long? I can't be left. Come back quickly and help me, Osborn.... I daren't stay alone."

As Osborn ran, roughly dressed, and sick with fear, down the road to the doctor's house, the irritations, the trials and domestic troubles of the past half-year were swept away by comparison with this that loomed infinitely greater. It had seemed to him, though he had borne it more or less silently, very pitiable that a man, the breadwinner, should ever come home weary of evenings to find his dinner not ready; it had seemed to him sometimes, well as he had concealed the feeling for the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate, child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon his pocket had been unexpected, pin-pricking sort of shocks. But all this now receded; the hour was upon them, upon him, and the woman he loved; what did a spoiled dinner matter? What did a fretful quarrel matter, if only she won through? He begged the doctor's immediate presence as a man begging life; but he himself hurried ahead, back to Marie. When with trembling lips and trembling hands he had kissed and caressed her, he lighted the fires in the flat, in the dining-room, her bedroom, the bathroom geyser and the kitchen stove; he didn't know what else to do, and he had vague ideas about plenty of hot water for some purpose unknown. He brought Marie tea and she would not let him leave her again; she clung to him as to a saviour, but he felt so helpless.

The doctor arrived before the nurse; the nurse while he was still there. "It won't happen yet," he told them. "You must be a brave girl; nurse'll tell you what to do; and I'll look in again at mid-day."

"You'll stay, doctor?" she cried.

"You won't leave her, doctor," stammered Osborn aghast.

"You'll be all right," said the doctor to Marie; "you've got nurse and I'll be here again long before you want me." Outside in the corridor he faced Osborn's protests.

"My dear fellow, I can't stay. It wouldn't do any good if I could. Remember she isn't the only woman in the world to go through it."

"She's the only woman in the world to me!" cried Osborn in a burst of agony.

The doctor advised Osborn to eat breakfast before he left him, and when he had gone the two terrified young people hung upon the wisdom of the nurse.

Before the doctor came again Osborn was shut out of the chamber of anguish, but the flat was small and from the farthest corner of it he heard Marie's moans and cries and prayers.

He stood with his hands over his ears, praying, too, praying that soon it would be over, that she might not cease to love him. "How can she ever love me again?" he thought over and over.

It seemed to him a dreadful death for love to die.

* * * * *

As September dusk was falling, after a silence like fate through the flat, Osborn heard his child's cry. Half an hour after that the doctor came out of the birth-place. He walked through the open sitting-room door to the spot where Osborn stood as if transfixed and saw how the young man had suffered; but he had seen scores of such young men suffer similarly before. He glanced around the room and saw the dead fire in the grate. He himself looked weary.

"Buck up!" he said, with a hand on Osborn's shoulder. "You've a jolly little boy. You look bad! What have you been doing all this time?"

"Listening," Osborn gasped.

"And you've not done any good at it, have you?" the doctor said, shaking his head. "You might as well have cleared off, you know, on to the Heath—saved yourself a bit. However—Yes, I quite understand how you felt. You'd better have something—a cup of tea, a whisky and soda."

"She?" Osborn uttered.

"She's doing all right; I shall look in again to-night."

"She—she had a—a rough time?"

"Yes," said the doctor, "girls of her type do. We've progressed too far, you know, much too far, for women. She's suffered very much. I'm sorry."

"Can I see her?"

"You may go in now and stay till Nurse sends you away."

While the doctor let himself out quietly, Osborn tiptoed down the corridor between the cream walls whose creaminess mattered so little, and the black-and-white pictures that had lost their values. He tapped with icy finger-tips upon Marie's door and the nurse let him in.

He looked beyond her to the bed where Marie lay, such a slim little outline under the covers, such a little, little girl to suffer tremendously. Her eyes were open, dark and huge and horrified; over her tousled fair hair they had drawn one of the pink tulle caps, now come, indeed, into their own.

"There she is," said the nurse cheerfully. "We've made her look very smart, you see, and she's feeling very well. We shall get on splendidly now, and the baby's bonnie."

But she could fool neither of these young people; they were too modern, too analytic, too disobedient. When the horror-struck eyes of Marie and Osborn met they knew the immensity of what had occurred. No cheerful professional belittlement could avail. Osborn knelt down by his wife.

"Leave her to me a bit, Nurse," he said in a strangled voice. "I'll be very quiet."

"For a few minutes, then," the nurse replied, and she left them.

Osborn put his face down and cried tears that he could not stop. He longed to feel Marie's hand, forgiving him, on his head, but she had no comfort for him. She lay so still, without sound or sign, that soon, checking his grief with an effort nearly too big for him, he looked up and saw that she was crying, too. She was too weak to cry passionately, but her weeping was very bitter. This frightened him, so that he sprang up on tiptoes and called the nurse back. He kept his own shamed, wretched face in shadow.

The nurse sent him away and Marie had not spoken one word.

He crept into the kitchen and made tea, found cold food and ate a scratch sort of meal; he had eaten nothing since early morning, and then not much.

He had received a great big shock.

He did not know that women suffered so. He had sometimes read how after the birth of a baby, the husband went in and found his wife, pale perhaps, tired perhaps, but radiant, joyful, triumphant. He had not known that anguished mothers wept such bitter tears. Nothing was as he had been led to believe.

Could she ever get well?

The nurse came in quickly and softly, and saw the haggard man sitting at a deal table, eating his scraps. She viewed the situation wisely.

"You'll have to get the porter's wife in to look after you a bit," she said. "You can't go on like that. And my hands will be full."

"Nurse," said Osborn, "was she very bad? Is that the—the worst?"

"There are worse cases," replied the nurse briskly, "but she has suffered a great deal. What did you expect? She's a delicate, slim girl, and we're not savages now, more's the pity. The first baby is always the hardest, too."

"The first is the last here," said Osborn savagely.

The nurse smiled wisely. "Oh," she said placidly, "no doubt you'll be sending for me again in a couple of years, or less."

"What do you think I'm made of?" Osborn cried.

"The same as most men," said the nurse. "But will you tell me where to find the patent groats, for I've come to make gruel and I haven't time to talk."

"I'm afraid we never keep any groats or things," he exclaimed. "I'm sure we don't."

The nurse answered confidently: "Mrs. Kerr is sure to have bought everything."

Search in the larder revealed the groats, and the nurse began the cooking over the gas-stove. While she made the gruel, Osborn thought of Marie awaiting her trial, preparing for it ... buying groats.

He wished he had known what he knew now, so that he could have helped her more, have thought of the groats for her.

"Nurse," he asked, "do you think she can ever get quite well?"

"Of course she will. Rest and good food will be all she wants."

"Nurse, can I go and say good night to her?"

"Don't make her cry again, Mr. Kerr, and you may come in at eight."

As she went out with the cup of steaming food, she looked back to ask:

"Did you see the baby?"

"Don't mention the damned baby!" said Osborn with deep anger.

"The baby can't help it," answered the nurse, going out.

Osborn sat there thinking. No! The baby couldn't help it. That was very true. Losing his hostility to this fragment of life, he began to feel a faint curiosity. What was it like?

At eight o'clock he would look at the baby.

The nurse looked out of the bedroom door just before eight and signalled to him. This time she did not leave them alone, though she busied herself at the other side of the room, with her back to them, because she knew how shy these young things were. And this time Marie looked at Osborn with the ghost of a smile, barely more than a tremor of the lips. He bent down.

She whispered into his ear: "I don't—think—I could ever—go—through it—again."

"Never again, my sweetheart," he whispered back.

She made a motion with her lips; he kissed them gently. "Good night," he murmured, "sleep well, poor little angel."

"She'll sleep," said the nurse unexpectedly, from near the fire. She was tending the baby now, and Osborn looked across at it in the subdued light. What a little mottled pink thing! What creases! What insignificance to have brought about all this!

"Look at your bonnie baby, Mr. Kerr," said the nurse, holding the mite aloft.

"Is that a bonnie baby?" said Osborn sourly.

"Osborn," whispered Marie from the bed, "he's a beautiful baby!"

Osborn looked down, startled, and saw in her wan face some glimmer of an unknown thing. She—she—was pleased with the baby! She admired and loved it!

He went out astonished.

The next morning, still flat on her pillows, she was nursing the baby with a smile on her mouth. Under her pink cap the faintest colour bloomed in her cheek; she asked for a fresh pink ribbon for her nightgown; she had slept peacefully. Some flowers were sent very early, with congratulations. They were from Rokeby and from Julia, and were arranged near her bed as she lay with this wonderful toy, this little new pet, Osborn's son, beside her. She had emerged out of her black darkness into light.



CHAPTER IX

PROBLEMS

Throughout Marie's convalescence there were things to buy; little things, but endless; to a woman who has suffered so greatly for their mutual joy can a man deny anything? The husband of a year cannot. Every day, before he went to his work—he was third salesman to one of the best Light Car Companies in town—Osborn held consultation, over the breakfast table, with the nurse. He used to say, as bravely and carelessly as if he felt no pinch at his pocket, "Is there anything you want to-day, Nurse?" And there was always something, a lotion, or a powder, or a new sponge, or a cake of a particular soap. The nurse had no compunction in adding: "If you do see a few nice grapes, or a really tender chicken, Mr. Kerr, I believe she might fancy them."

Osborn's lunches, during that month, grew lighter and lighter; they almost ceased.

Mrs. Ambler proved expensive in the kitchen, breaking for the while through her economical rule, feeling nothing too good for her poor child. She used to remind Osborn every time they met, by word, or look, or expressive sigh, how Marie had suffered. He felt oppressed, overridden and tired; but he was very obedient beneath the rule of the women.

He had to wait upon himself a good deal; sometimes he brought a chop for dinner home in his pocket and grilled it himself.

He slept in the room relegated to him as dressing-room or to a chance visitor, as occasion might arise; it looked forlorn and dusty, and the toilet covers wanted changing.

He longed to have Marie about again, blithe and pretty; and to be rid of this pack. He thought of his mother-in-law and the nurse as a pack.

Several times he succumbed to dining with Rokeby at his club, but he always hurried home in time to say good night to Marie before she fell asleep.

When the baby was nearly three weeks old, he was called upon to lift his wife out of bed for the first time, and to put her in an armchair, which had been prepared with pillows and a rug, by the purring gas-fire. She was so eager to be moved, and he so eager to have her to himself for just a little, that he begged permission to take her into another room for awhile, but the nurse would have none of it, and she was right, for Marie was white and tired when she had sat in the chair for only ten minutes. That staggered Osborn afresh. He was speechlessly sorry for her, and sat by her holding her hand, watching her concernedly, until she asked to be put back into bed again. That was on a Sunday.

The Sunday marked his memory. It disappointed him so bitterly to find that Marie was not stronger. After all the chickens and grapes, and doctors' and nurses' fees, she was not strong; and what could he do more for her? He was not a rich man. After the drain of all this they must live more steadily even than before; he could not waft her and the baby away to some warm south-coast resort to finish her convalescence; he could not take her for long motoring week-ends.

In a week the nurse would go. Would Marie be ready for her to go? If not, could Osborn keep her longer?

He knew he could not. There was only a sum of twelve or thirteen pounds left from the twenty which had represented the nest-egg which he had when he married; five of those pounds the doctor would take; six of them the nurse would take. He tried to arrange the disposal of his salary afresh, and could do no more than cut down his weekly expenditure of ten shillings to five.

But Marie and the baby were worth it all—if only he could get them alone again.

A week after that the nurse left and Osborn came back to Marie's room.

He looked forward to it; part of the dreadfulness of the past month had been their separation; now they were to be alone again, without that anarchic and despotic pack. On the morning, before he left, he wished the nurse good-bye with a false heartiness and handed her, breezily, a cheque. He would see her no more, God be thanked! When he came home that evening his place would be his own, his wife his own, the baby their own; there would be no stranger intruding upon their snug intimacy.

Osborn's heart was light when, at six o'clock, he put his latchkey into the keyhole and entered; he gave the long, low coo-ee which recalled old glad days, and Marie emerged from the kitchen, finger on mouth.

"Hush, don't wake him!"

"Is he in bed?"

"Nurse stayed to put him to bed before she left."

Osborn embraced her. "We're alone at last, hurrah!"

"Will you help me?" said Marie. "I'm so tired."

"Course I'll help you, little dear," he replied tenderly. "We'll do everything together, just as we used to."

"Osborn," said Marie suddenly, "that's the whole secret of married life, to do everything together, nice things and nasty things."

"Of course, darling. We do, don't we?"

"I suppose we do," she answered doubtfully; "at least there are some things a man doesn't share because he can't."

Her eyes dilated, and he guessed what she was thinking of. "I know, sweetest, I know," he said hastily, "but try not to remember it; it's all over and done with; and, Marie, I suffered, too."

She remembered, then, the tears they had shed together on the night of the baby's birth, and her heart was soft.

The night seemed punctuated to Osborn by the crying of the baby. It woke at regular hours, as if it could read some clock in the darkness; and quickly as, it seemed to him, he must have roused, Marie had wakened quicker, and was hushing the child. He could hear her soft whispers through the darkness, in the subsequent silences during which he guessed, with a thrill of anxious awe, that she was feeding it; frail as she was, she gave of what strength she had to the baby. Never had Marie seemed more wonderful to Osborn.

Very early in the morning she was tending the baby; he wished that he had been able to keep the nurse longer. He left her reluctantly after breakfast, to get through the baby's bath and toilet unaided, before the heavier work of the flat. Women who knew would have understood why Marie trembled and despaired at the tasks before her. When the baby cried as, with hands still weakened, she tried to hold up its slipping little body in the bath, she cried, too. As she cried, she thought how tears seemed to be always near her eyes during these married days. Was something wrong with marriage? Before, in her careless girl-days, she had never wept; she had never so suffered, so wearied and despaired. While she questioned, she dressed the baby in the flannel and lawn things she had made for it a long while ago, and when she had dressed it, she fed it again, and again it slept.

It was astonishing how much heavier a month-old infant could grow during an hour's marketing.

That reminded her that they had something else to buy, a big thing that would swallow up nearly, or quite, a week of Osborn's pay, a perambulator. The baby had luxuries; his toilet set from Rokeby, his christening robe from Julia, his puffed and frilly baby-basket from Grannie Amber, were dreams to delight a mother's heart; but he had no carriage. For a little while she might carry him when she was not too tired; and when she was, he might sleep out on the balcony that jutted from the sitting-room window, and she could stay beside him; but ultimately the question of the perambulator must arise.

As Marie walked home with her baby and her basket, she said to herself: "I won't ask poor Osborn now; not when he's just paid that woman a whole six pounds; not till he's settled the doctor; and there'll be an extra bill for the baby's vaccination soon, and the next furniture instalment's due; but when all that's cleared off, I'll choose the right time and ask him. I shall give him an extra nice dinner, and tell him we'll have to buy one."

In a week, when the doctor called to vaccinate the baby, he ordered the mother to leave off nursing it herself; he put it upon a patent food, not a cheap food; and it formed a pertinacious habit of wearing out best rubber bottle teats quicker than any baby ever known. In the nights Marie did not now reach out in the darkness to her baby and, gathering it to herself, nourish it quietly, without the certainty of waking Osborn; but there had to be a nightlight, there had to be business with a little spirit stove and saucepan, the unlucky jingle of a spoon against the bottle, so that Osborn began to mutter drowsily: "Hang that row!" and she longed to scream at him, "It's your baby, isn't it, as well as mine?"

Osborn was unused to and intolerant of domestic discomforts such as these; in the nights his nerves were frayed; at the breakfast-table he showed it: "You look tired to death, and I'm sure I am," he grumbled. "If this is marriage, give me single blessedness every time. Worry and expense! Expense and worry! Such is life!"

In the evenings she was very subdued; she was losing her life and light; he did not know that during the day, after such display of his irritation, she cried herself sick. He asked her to come out to dinner one evening; he said:

"You and I are getting two old mopes. Look here, girlie, put on your best frock, and come and dine at Pagani's; I can't afford it, but we'll do it."

But she could not.

"Baby," she said, hesitating.

Osborn looked at her in silence. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, after a while, "aren't we ever to have our evenings out, then? Shall you always be tied here now?"

"A baby ties one," she replied.

"So it does, doesn't it?" said Osborn despondently.

Marie looked at him steadily. Just as she wanted to scream at him in the night, so she now longed to cry: "It's harder on me than you! Do you think I don't want ever to go out? Do you think I don't often long to go into the West End and look at the shops, or do a matinee with mother or Julia, and come back refreshed?"

But with the prudence of her mother's daughter she restrained herself.

"Day in, day out, are we always to live the life domestic pure and simple?" Osborn demanded.

For answer she shrugged her shoulders. Osborn thought her strangely nonchalant, almost contemptuous.

"Well, I, for one, damned well won't do it," he said, rising from the table.

"But I must," Marie replied in a level voice.

It was Osborn's turn to look at her; he wondered just what she meant by it.

"Well," he asked, "I can't help it, can I?"

"Neither can I," said Marie.

Osborn put on his coat and hat and went out. It was the first time he had ever gone out after dinner at home. For some while after he had left Marie remained alone at the table, staring before her. The small dining-room was still charming in the candlelight, but it took on a new aspect for her. The cream walls and golden-brown curtains enclosed her irrevocably. She would never get away from this place, the prison of home. Day in, day out, as Osborn said, it would be the same. The man might come and go at will, the woman had forged her fetters.

Didn't men ever understand anything? What crass vanity, what selfishness, what intolerance, kept them blind?

Marie was hardening. She did not cry. After a while she rose and cleared the table. As Osborn was not there, wishing for her company, she washed up. That would make it so much easier in the morning.

It left her, though, with an hour now in which to sit down and resume her thinking.

The flat was very quiet, very desolate. The man had gone out to seek amusement. How queer women's lives were!

She knew women whose husbands invariably went out at night, as soon as they had fed. What did these women really think of their men? What did these men really think of their women? How much did each know of the other? At what stage in these varied married lives did the wife become merely a servitor, to serve or order the serving of her husband's dinner, for which he came home before, again, he left her?

Married life!

At nine-thirty Marie prepared the baby's bottle and went to bed. She schooled herself to sleep, knowing that during the night the baby would make his demands, and she fell asleep quickly. She did not hear Osborn come in. He looked about the flat for her before going to his dressing-room, and, not finding her, said to himself wilfully: "Marie's sulking; she wouldn't wait up. Does she always expect a fellow to stay at home?"

By the glim of the nightlight, when he went into their room he saw her sleeping. The child slept, too. Osborn got resentfully into his bed, and thought of Rokeby, with whom he had just parted, and the end of a conversation they had had.

"You could afford to marry, Desmond."

"What's the standard?"

"Being able to keep servants," said Osborn harshly. "You marry the girl you love, a pretty girl you're proud to take about, and she can't come out to dine with you; she can't move from home; babies, they cry all night, burn 'em! And she gets ready to hate you. It's hell!"



CHAPTER X

RECRIMINATION

On a day of January, like spring, Julia went upon a sentimental errand, influenced by she did not know what; but she guessed it was the youth in the air. It made her think of the youngest thing she knew, and that was Marie's baby, and of what she could do for it; and all that she could do, as far as she saw, was to buy it a superfluous woolly lamb. So after her day's work was over, at half-past five, Julia put on her hat and coat with a purpose, and stepped into the toy department of her favourite stores.

Julia was not mean; from out the whole flock of lambs which she found awaiting her selection she chose a beauty. Its white fluffiness and its beady eyes affected her softly; her handsome face grew motherly as she insinuated the stranger into her muff, where her hands stroked it unconsciously. Julia was far more pleased with the lamb than the baby would be, as she boarded an omnibus and rode towards Hampstead.

It was six when she arrived at the door of No. 30 Welham Mansions, and Marie opened it to her with the baby in her arms, huddled up in a rather soiled shawl from which only his incredibly downy head emerged. He looked solemnly at Julia and emitted an inquiring croak.

"You aren't still carrying that baby out, are you?" Julia asked suddenly.

They entered the sitting-room together.

"What else can I do? If I go out, he's got to go, too."

"You'll get a perambulator?"

"I'm going to ask Osborn soon."

"Why not ask him now?"

"He's had such a lot of expense, poor boy."

"Still," Julia argued, "it's got to be bought, and you ought to be saved. Ask him to-night, after dinner."

"I believe I will," said Marie. "My back ached so."

Julia was more bewildered than angry.

"My goodness!" she said sharply. "What's the matter with life? Why can't a young man and woman have a baby and look healthy over it? I've got to ask someone that, and get an answer."

Julia followed Marie back to the kitchen.

"I'll whip the cream, if he's got to have it," she said grudgingly.

"And I'll go and look nice for once. Then I'll ask him for the perambulator."

Marie came out again in the wedding-frock of chiffons, very tumbled now, looking sweet but with the hectic flush of her exertions still on her cheeks.

"All my clothes are going to glory!" she lamented.

"Tell you what," said Julia, producing frothy mounds of cream round her energetic whisk, "do have my bridesmaid dress. I've never worn it since your wedding—too picturesque for my style, that frock is. But if you—"

"No, I won't!" Marie protested, tears in her eyes. "I'm not going to take anything from you except your old gloves for the housework. It would be scandalous; you, a girl working for her living, and me, a married woman with a husband to work for me—"

"I know which I'd rather be," Julia remarked.

"So do I," said Marie, with a quick intake of breath.

They looked at each other a little defiantly, but did not proceed to any enlightenment. Then Julia went up to Marie and laid her arms about her neck and her cool lips upon her hot cheek.

"Well, leave it at that," she said. "Good-bye, kiddie; take care of yourself. I can't stay. Send for me any time. I must fly!" And was gone.

Osborn came in hungry before seven, sniffed the dinner cooking, and turned into the dining-room. He took off his boots, fished his carpet slippers from behind the coal-scuttle, and put them on with a sigh of relief. The smell which pervaded the flat was savoury and good; the dinner-table was ready to the last saltspoon; the baby was quiet; all seemed to promise one of those smooth domestic evenings sometimes granted to a man.

He settled down by the fire after dinner to read so much of his evening paper as the Tube journey had not given him time for, while Marie made coffee and handed him his cup.

"Osborn," she said.

"Yes, dear."

"I wanted to ask you about something."

Into Osborn's eyes crept a harassed look, almost of fear; it was a very reluctant look, with repugnance in it and resignation and suspicion.

"About something?" he asked cautiously, "or for something?"

Marie had seen the look and had quite an old acquaintance with it. That ever-ready lump rose to her throat, and she had that passing wonder which she had often felt before—why she should cry so easily now.

"For something," she answered hesitatingly.

There was a silence.

Osborn lifted his paper as if to resume reading. His face flushed and his forehead lined.

"What do you want now?" he asked at last.

Marie flushed, too, till her face burned and tears glittered in her eyes.

"I'm afraid," she said, "that—that we'll have to buy a pram, shan't we?"

"A 'pram'?" said Osborn, as if she had asked for a motor-car.

"All babies have to have one. It's time—he ought to have had after the first month. He's getting so heavy, I can't carry him about much longer."

"Then don't carry him about."

"I've got to, unless I stay in altogether."

Osborn became silent. Because he felt desperately poor he also felt desperately angry; because he felt desperately angry he was angry with the most convenient person—his wife.

"Couldn't we buy one," said Marie, after he had remained mute for some while, "from the furniture people on the instalment plan?"

"Instalment plan!" he barked. "I'm sick of instalments! When am I ever going to be free? When's my money ever going to be my own again? Tell me that!"

"I can't tell you anything," said Marie, beginning to cry.

"Tears again!" he groaned. "Always this blasted tap-turning if you ask a woman a lucid question! Don't you see what you're making life for me? Don't you see the eternal drag you're putting on my wheel? I never drink, I never play cards, I don't do what any other fellow under the sun would expect to do; I give you all I can—every penny's gone in this awful domesticity. Domesticity? Slavery, I call it! What more can I do? What more do you expect? You ask for a perambulator as if it were a sixpenny-ha'penny toy! What would a perambulator cost?"

She retained control enough to reply:

"I—I have a catalogue. The one I've marked—I'd thought of—is—is three pounds ten."

Osborn threw away restraint.

"Three pounds ten!" he cried. "Within ten bob of a week's salary! Do you realise what you're asking? My God, women have a cheek. You bleed a man and bleed him until—until he don't know where to turn. It's ask, ask, ask—"

Then Marie also flung off restraint and gave all her pent-up nerves play. They faced each other like furies, he red and grim, she shaken and shrill.

"Ask, ask, ask! And what has marriage ever given me? Look at me! I was happy till I married you! I never knew what it was to be so poor and—and grudged till I'd married you! I didn't know what marriage was. I didn't know I'd be hungry and worried—yes, hungry!—and made ashamed to ask for every penny that I couldn't get without asking. Why can't I get it? Why, because you took me away from my job and married me! I cook for you, and sew and sweep and dust for you, and you take it all as a matter of course. All I've given up for you you take as a matter of course!

"All I've suffered for you you take as a matter of course ... you men!"

"I didn't know what it'd be like to have a baby, or, God knows, I'd never have had one—"

"Be quiet!" shouted Osborn. "Be quiet!"

But she raved on:

"No, I wouldn't! I wouldn't, I tell you! What do you expect of women? You expect us to want babies and bear them in all that—hell, and be pleased to have them; and—and to put up with begging from you for them! And you don't care how weak we are—how our backs ache; you don't care if the baby goes out or stays in—if I go out or stay in. It's your child, isn't it? It's not all my fault we had it, is it? There's a lucid question for you! Answer it!"

"I will do no such thing!" he cried angrily. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself—a woman—a woman suggesting she doesn't want a baby!"

"I didn't say it! I suggest I don't want one of yours!"

"My God!" said Osborn, recoiling.

Marie grew ice-cold when she had said a thing that she would have thought impossible to say; but there was a keen triumph in the ice-coldness. She had silenced him.

"Isn't married life ugly?" she asked. "Isn't it little and mean and sordid and stingy and unjust? You create a condition which will tie me to the house; you are angry with the condition because it's expensive; you're angry with me for being house-tied. Can I help it? Can I help anything? Do you think I don't want theatres and to go out to dinner with you as I used to? The baby's yours, isn't he, as well as mine?"

"Marie," said Osborn, "Marie—"

He searched for things to say.

"I wish I had never married you—I wish I had never married at all," said Marie. "Men won't understand; they're impatient, they're brutes! And you haven't answered my question yet."

Osborn went out of the flat.

The inevitable answer of the goaded man—anger, silence and retreat—cried aloud to her.

She was afraid of herself.

What terrible things she had said—she, a little, new, young wife and mother!

She spoke out into the stillness, shocked, appealing, still trembling with her rage.

"Oh, God! Oh, God!... Oh, God, help me!"



CHAPTER XI

THE BANGED DOOR

When Julia had left the Kerrs' flat and was turning out of the building into the windy street, she met Desmond Rokeby about to enter. Her handsome face was grim beneath her veil and her eyes snapped. As she pulled up short and stood in Rokeby's path, she expressed to him the idea of a very determined obstacle.

"How nice to meet you!" he cried goodhumouredly.

"I'm glad I've met you," she replied.

Rokeby surveyed her quizzically. "What an admission," he said, "from an arch-enemy! You are the enemy of us all, aren't you? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Where were you going?" Julia countered.

"To No. 30."

"Then—yes—you can do something for me. You can go away again."

"Are they out?" said Rokeby; "are they ill? What's the mystery?"

She looked up and down the road; she gave him the impression that she stamped her feet and frowned, though to appearances she did neither. She ordered:

"Don't loiter here. Osborn—Mr. Kerr'll be home directly, and if he sees you he'll take you in, won't he?"

"Probably, I should say."

"Then come away."

"If I may walk a little way with you."

"I don't care where you walk with me," Julia replied vigorously, "if it isn't into Marie's flat."

She set a brisk pace down the opposite side of the road, as if assuming that Osborn might pass them unnoticing on the other, and Rokeby kept step unprotestingly. "It must be after six o'clock," he said presently.

"It is," she replied.

"Which is your way home?"

Julia described her route with a brevity characteristic of her.

He slackened pace, so that she looked round at him, impatiently questioning.

"Look here, Miss Winter," he coaxed, "don't go home. Stay out and dine with me. Of course we're mere strangers, but we're both so emancipated, aren't we? No, emancipated's an out-of-date word. We've passed that, haven't we, long ago? We're—I dunno what we are; there's no limit to us. Isn't it jolly? So do come into town and dine with me."

"I think I'd like to, thanks," said Julia; "I'm not quite sure."

"Why aren't you quite sure?"

"I might be bored with you. How do I know?"

Rokeby looked at her with an astonished respect and a glim of his saving humour. "So you might; er—I hadn't thought of it; but 'pon my word, I'll do my best. Won't you come if I guarantee that?"

And he wanted her to come, oddly.

"Thanks," said Julia, "I will."

"Queer thing," Rokeby thought in his surprised soul, "when a girl all on her own in this hard world hesitates to come out to a good dinner with not a bad fellow in case she might be bored."

"I know what you're thinking," said Julia calmly; "you're thinking—or you are almost—that it was nearly a bit of cheek on my part. I don't blame you. You're spoilt, all of you. The girls you take out earn their dinners and stalls too conscientiously; no matter how dull you are, they take pains to shine. Frankly, if you take me out, you've got to shine. I demand it. And you'd be surprised at the number of invitations an exacting thing like me gets."

"No, I shouldn't," said Rokeby softly, bending his head to look with a new interest at her face. "That's sheer cleverness, that is; that's brilliance. You've seized it. A woman should have confidence to demand and get."

"Women are too humble."

"I never found them so," Rokeby denied respectfully.

"Well, half of them are too humble, and the other half are slave-drivers. If a girl's got to choose one or the other, she'd better drive."

"That's awf'ly sound," said Rokeby.

They neared a taxicab rank, and the first driver watched their approach with inquiring signal. "Cab!" Rokeby sang out, and the man started his engine.

"Where are we going?" Julia asked.

"Where you like," Desmond answered, "only let's start there."

He opened the door, she passed in, and he directed, "Piccadilly; and I'll tell you just where, presently."

He followed Julia in, and they were away, over suburban roads darker than the streets of the West.

Rokeby felt a certain triumph in capturing Julia. Besides her modern fighting quality, to which he was not entirely antagonistic, he realised that she was a pleasure to the eye, a well-tailored, handsome girl, town-bred, town-poised, of the neat, trim type so approved by the male eye. She knew her value too. She made a man think. Cheap attentions she would have handed back as trash, without thanks, to the donor. She conferred a favour, but would never receive one. Her self-assurance was no less than royal, and a word or touch in violation would have been stamped a rank impertinence. Rokeby, who had made the same pleasant uses of taxicabs as most men about town, knew all this with a half-sigh.

"Where would you like to dine?" he asked. "What kind of a place do you like?"

"A quiet place, to-night," said Julia; "it's better for talking, and this evening I've got to talk to someone."

Whereby she flattered Rokeby more than by any degree of easy flirtation which other women might have permitted, as they sped along the ever-brightening streets.

"We'll go to the Pall Mall, if you like, Miss Winter; it's little, it's good, it's quiet; interesting people go there; we'll make two more. How about that?"

"It'll do excellently."

"We shall probably get a balcony table if all those downstairs are booked."

As Rokeby said, they were in time for a balcony table, and he ordered dinner and wine before recurring to his former question.

"What was all the mystery about No. 30?"

"I don't call it a mystery; it was just a very ordinary domestic proposition; I didn't want them to be interrupted this evening, because, you see—you will laugh—"

"No, I swear I won't; do tell me."

"Marie wants to ask for a perambulator."

"'Him'?"

"Yes, him. Who's always 'him' to the household—the husband, the tyrant, the terror. Ugh!"

"Oh, come, Miss Winter. Osborn Kerr—I've known him for years; there's nothing of the tyrant and the terror about him. Why this embroidery of the sad tale?"

"Well, why was Marie afraid to ask him, then?"

"I don't know anything about it. I'm at a disadvantage with you, it seems."

"I'm quite willing to tell you; that's what I'm dining with you for, isn't it?"

"Is it?" said Rokeby, with a very charming smile which but few women knew.

She hurried on: "Yes, it is. You see, I didn't want you to come in and spoil it all, prevent Marie from asking her husband for the perambulator."

"You were awf'ly thoughtful, and I'm sure I didn't want to chip in at the wrong moment; but, I say, would it have mattered so much? Because I'd love to know why; you're interesting me, you know. She could have asked him another time, couldn't she?"

"You see, she was all ready to-night."

"'All ready'?"

"She put on the frock she was married in; and there was the whipped cream he's so fond of, with a cherry pie; and it all seemed so propitious that I thought it would be a pity if you spoilt it."

"You're right. I wouldn't have cut in for the world. But, I say," he cried gleefully, "what guile! What plotfulness! There's no getting even with a woman, is there? Little Mrs. Osborn and you lay your heads together, and she puts on her wedding frock—"

Julia eyed him with a steely disdain.

"Kindly tell me why a woman should trouble herself to make plans to coax her husband?"

"Ask me another. How do I know? She did it, didn't she?"

"Yes, because he was one of those beastly 'hims,' to be toadied and cajoled and fussed into a good humour before his wife dare ask for a carriage for the baby that belongs to both of them."

"Oh, I see! I see! I say, I'm stupid, aren't I?"

"I'll forgive you your stupidity if you promise me never to marry and make any woman miserable."

Rokeby became slightly nettled.

"Why shouldn't I marry and make some woman happy?" he demanded.

"Ask me another; you men don't seem to, do you?"

"You're not very sympathetic to—"

"Nor you. Look here! Bread and butter, and candles and bootblacking, and laundering, and expenses for a baby when you've got one, are all everyday things, aren't they? If a woman's got to fuss and plan and cry and worry and fight just every day for the everyday things, is life worth while at all? Isn't a girl like me, in full possession of her health, mistress of her own life, filling her own pocket, better off than a girl like Marie who's married and lost it all?"

"Are you?" he demanded, stirred enough to look right into Julia's eyes; and he saw what deep eyes they were, and what sincere trouble and question lay in them.

She fenced doggedly: "I don't see why Marie should be made wretched; she's only twenty-six. Is she to have that kind of fuss every day of her life?"

"She won't want a new perambulator every day, we'll hope."

"Oh ... don't be cheap! You know what I mean. Why can't men meet domestic liabilities fairly and squarely with their wives? Why must they be coaxed to look at a bill which they authorise their wives to incur? Why is a man vexed because he's got to pay the butcher, when he eats meat every day of his life?"

"Since you ask, my dear girl, I'll tell you. People are too selfish to marry nowadays and make a good job of it. Most men always were; but then women used to go to the wall and go unprotestingly. Now something's roused them to jib. They're making the hell of a row. They won't stand it; and nobody else can. So what's to be done?"

"Is this marriage?" Julia asked coldly.

"No," said Rokeby, "it's war."

"It ought not to be."

"What do you suggest?"

"N-nothing."

"Nor does anyone else," Rokeby stated.

They were through the first course, and he replenished her glass with sparkling hock. "Eat, drink, and be merry," he counselled lachrymosely, "for to-morrow we may be married."

"Never for me."

"That's rash. People are caught—oh! it's the very devil to keep out of the net."

"What will be the end of things?"

"What things?"

"Marie's and Osborn's."

"My dear Miss Winter, you exaggerate. They'll shake down, and that's all."

"Will they be happy?"

"You'll have to ask them that, later. But, you see, I know Osborn Kerr, and he'll make the best of it like other people. I wish I could convince you. Don't distress yourself over the normal troubles of normal people."

But Julia still worried on: "She looked so white and tired to-day; she'd been carrying that great baby about round the shops, and she's not strong yet."

"Can't the baby stay peaceably at home?"

"Then she's got to stay too. Where she goes the baby must go. She's given up going out at all except just for her marketing."

"Well," said Rokeby, rubbing his head, "I don't know, I'm sure, what you or I can do. We'd better leave it all alone."

"If I hadn't spent everything I had in the bank only yesterday for a new suit I'd send her a baby-carriage to-morrow. It'll be three weeks before I've put by enough again."

"Don't rob yourself," said Rokeby quickly, with a softening face. "Look here, let me know what happens, will you?"

"About the perambulator?"

"Ah!"

"Will you be fairy godfather, then?"

"If you'd like me to."

"Oh, I would! You—you—"

"What am I?"

"You dear!"

"'Rah! 'Rah!" cried Rokeby, "shake hands on that!" She laid in his frankly a short and capable hand. "I'm not a 'him,' am I? Oh, say I'm not."

"You're not—yet. You're a dear."

"Am now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."

"Amen," said Julia, twinkling.

"Here are peches melba," said Rokeby, "women always like them. I'm glad they're on our programme to-night."

"I adore them."

"You might try to remember, before we leave the subject," Rokeby suggested, "that the prospects of these 'hims' aren't very rosy either sometimes. You see it comes hard on a man, though doubtless he's a black-hearted scoundrel to admit it, when he marries and has to stretch an income, which was perfectly palmy in the bachelor days, to meet the needs of two, or three, or however many it may ultimately have to meet. He can't help a yelp now and then. It's a horrid sound, but it relieves him. The only remedy I can suggest for the existing state of affairs is that all wives of over a year's standing should pack cotton wool in their ears. Eh? That's brains, isn't it? Kindly applaud."

"'M ..." said Julia, tightening her lips.

"Osborn entered marriage with the most exalted expectations," Rokeby went on.

"So did Marie."

"I assure you I never knew a chap more in love."

"Nor I a girl."

"Oh, chuck it!" begged Rokeby, laughing. "Do chuck it, will you? Then you'll be a dear too. Look here, wouldn't you like to go on somewhere after this? I can telephone from here for seats."

But she would not. So they lingered on for awhile, talking and smoking over their coffee; and at last, when Julia looked across the room at the clock over the big mirrors, she was astonished and half vexed to find how much time had slipped by. Then she insisted on going, but Rokeby insisted, too, upon his escort all the way home, and she did not gainsay him. As he lifted her furs over her straight shoulders, waving away the waiter who hastened forward for the service, he murmured:

"Were you bored?"

"I've loved it," said Julia graciously, for she could be generous.

They walked home, according to her wishes, for it was a perfect night, and she a robust young creature who loved to give her energy a fling. She walked with a peculiar effect of hope and buoyancy, in spite of her habit of sombre sayings, and Rokeby found a pleasure in noting her. She looked what she was, a woman who had never yet encountered defeat.

This did not rouse in him the hunting desire to run her to earth, or to the dead wall against which she would sturdily plant that fine back of hers, and to vanquish her vainglory; but it made him softer, more protective of her than he had felt before; it made him wish that always she would keep this spirit and courage which burned like a brave candle in the mists of life. As they said good-bye upon the imposing pillar-guarded steps of her boarding-house—called in modern fashion a Ladies' Club—he held her hand longer than he had ever imagined he might want to hold the hand of this dragon of a girl.

"Be happy," he adjured her, "don't take other folks' troubles upon you; let 'em settle their own. Haven't you enough to do?"

"I always feel that there is no end to what I could do," Julia confessed.

"Yes, you generous thing!" Rokeby cried, "but don't abuse yourself. There—you don't want my advice, do you? Forgive me! And thank you so much for an interesting evening. And—and—good night."

He stood at the bottom of the steps watching reluctantly while Julia entered. She had a latchkey which, ordinary possession as it was, seemed a symbol of her freedom. While he would have granted it generously, the freedom somehow piqued Rokeby a little. He stood smiling rather sadly till she shut the door.

A scurrying housemaid paused in her rush upstairs to say:

"Oh, miss! You were rung up on the 'phone just now, and I took the message. From a Mrs. Kerr, miss, and she would be glad if you could go round at once."

Julia stood still for a moment or two, keeping her hands very still in her muff. "I expect ..." she began to think. Then she rushed for the cab-whistle, which hung in the hall, pulled open the door, and whistled until a cab came creeping round the corner, feeling in its blind way for the invisible fare. She ran down the steps, signalling, and it spurted up.

"Number Thirty Welham Mansions, Hampstead," she said as she jumped in.

It was an extravagant method of travel—being some distance to Hampstead—for a young woman earning three pounds ten a week and spending most of it gorgeously, but she did not care. The four shillings were a nothing compared to Marie's need of her. She passed the time in speculations of wrathful trend, until they pulled up in the quiet road from which she had so recently driven away with Desmond Rokeby.

Marie opened the door to her—Marie with a face like white marble and burning eyes. Her dead composure was wonderful and scornful, but Julia would have none of it; as soon as the door was shut upon them and they stood there, between the cream walls and black etchings of the hall, she seized Marie in her arms, exclaiming:

"My poor dear! What's up? Has he—"

For a long while Marie wept on Julia's breast, before the ashes of the dining-room fire, while the clock with the kind voice ticked musically on and on, and the room grew chillier, and herself more tired; but at last she could tell all.

"We—we've had—an awful—quarrel."

"Oh dear!" Julia commented, "oh dear!" She did not know what else to say.

"I asked him—about the pram."

"Yes, yes! As you said you would."

"He is so angry, so unjust."

"My poor old kiddie!"

"And I was so angry, perhaps I was unjust too."

"No, no, you weren't," said Julia viciously. "I'm sure of it. Nothing could be unjust to him. He deserves it all."

"No, he doesn't You don't understand. But he wasn't fair to-night; he was so angry, and it wasn't my fault. Do they think we like asking, I wonder? And I don't know what I said, Julia, but I know I made him think I didn't want baby."

"Well?"

"But I do want him, Julia. I don't know what I'd do without him; I love him so much—they just grow into your life, Julia, babies do. He's so sweet."

"Course you love him. I know that. So does Osborn, so don't cry."

"He said I ought to be ashamed of myself."

"Oh, indeed? Indeed! And may one ask why?"

"B—because I asked for a pram, I s'pose."

"Really! Indeed! I'd like to—"

"Perhaps it wasn't just that. I don't know—but he got so angry and said he couldn't afford it, and I said, 'P—p—perhaps on the instalment p—p—plan?' and he said he was sick of instalments and when was his money ever going to be his own again? And I can't help it, Julia, can I? I haven't money of my own. And then I got angry and said things; and he said I ought to be ashamed of myself."

"But aren't you going to have the pram?"

"I don't know. I don't expect so. He went out without saying."

"That's like a man. Go out and slam the door if you don't want to give an answer!"

"Julia, I—I'm afraid I hurt his feelings. I made him say, 'My God!'"

"That's nothing. They speak of God like a man in the street. That means nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure, you poor lamb? I'm as sure as sure."

"Do you think you know much about men, Julia?"

"I know too much, thank you."

"I hope you didn't mind coming here again? I didn't know what to do; I was so wretched, and there was no one to speak to; no one to tell; so I thought of you."

"That's right, my dear. Always think of me, if I can do anything. You know I'll always come."

"You are a darling, Julia."

The two girls hugged each other strenuously.

Marie said with a break yet in her voice, "It seemed to me I was being quite reasonable."

"There are all sorts of men," said Julia, "kind men and unkind; mean men and generous; good-tempered and bad-tempered; every sort except a reasonable one. There's never been a reasonable man born yet."

When Julia had pronounced this dictum, she stroked Marie's hair, and said: "You know, baby, you ought to go to bed like the other baby. You're tired out and your young man'll be home soon, I've no doubt."

"I don't suppose he'll be later than eleven."

"Well, I'd rather not be still here when he comes, thank you."

"Oh, you wouldn't say I'd told you anything!"

"I won't give myself a chance. I'll put you to bed and then I'll go home."

Julia was like a mother to Marie when she helped her to undress, and tucked her up in the bed beside the infant's cot. And when Marie asked anxiously, with her mind still troubled: "Julia, you know that I love baby, don't you?" she was warm in her assurances.

"Would you mind," said Marie, "making up the dining-room fire a little, please, dear, in case Osborn is cold when he comes in?"

Julia stroked on her gloves slowly. "Certainly," she replied, after a pause.

"I should only put on a couple of lumps, dear," said Marie from the bed.

"Righto!" Julia answered at the door. "Good night, babies!"

Very softly she closed the door and left them.

She stood for a few moments in the dining-room trying to persuade herself to make up the fire for Osborn. She hated doing it; she grudged him his fire and his armchair and pipe and the comfort of those carpet slippers she saw behind the coal-box. But at last she took up the tongs, saying to herself sourly:

"It's for Marie, after all, because she asked me; not for him."

She chose her lumps of coal carefully, the two biggest, heavy enough to crush out altogether the tiny glow of the embers which remained; she battened them down and remained to assure herself that they would not burn.

"He won't be able to say the fire wasn't made up," she thought.

She placed Osborn's carpet slippers carefully in front of it.

"He can't say he wasn't made comfortable when he came in."

She went out, with a small sense of satisfaction, and called softly along the corridor, "Good night, babies," before she left the flat. It was very, very cold, and she was more than ready for her own bed.

She travelled homewards upon the Tube.

Before she slept, however, Julia had a letter to write, to Desmond Rokeby; she addressed it to his business address, which she happened to know, and marked it Very urgent. The contents were as urgent as the instruction upon the envelope, and once again that night she left the Ladies' Club to post the letter at the pillar-box at the corner. It would be cleared at midnight, and Rokeby should get his news by the first post in the morning.

Then Julia Winter slept; but although her head was full of two babies, a grown-girl one and a tiny weakling one, together in a soiled pink room, it was not of them that she dreamed. She was sitting once more at a balcony table in the quiet red restaurant with the big mirrors, facing an unusual kind of man who cared as little what she thought of him as she cared what he thought of her; the restaurant was warm and rosy, and they drifted upon the flying hours, like two voyagers upon a happy river.



CHAPTER XII

BEHIND THE VEIL

Marie heard Osborn come in and go to the dining-room and hit an unresponsive mass of coal vigorously, but she gave no sign. In the darkness she listened for all the sounds she had learned to know so well; his movements in the dressing-room, his splashing as he washed face and hands in the bathroom, his pat-pat tread in carpet slippers along the corridor to their door. To-night he paused here, as if listening; and it seemed as if her heart paused, too, while she also listened for him. But he spoke no word, and she spoke none, and the baby slept, so presently she heard the cautious turning of the handle and his careful entry.

She feigned sleep.

He knew, by tiny signs he had learnt to discover, that she was not asleep, but he feigned belief that she was.

His bed creaked to tell her that he was getting into it, in the darkness, by her side.

Both Marie and Osborn were still angry, sore, insulted and resentful, and, like other married people in small homes, they must intrude upon each other intimately, sleep side by side, wake side by side, and remain as closely conscious of each other as if they dwelt together, by mutual desire, in a perpetual garden of roses. True, there was a bed in Osborn's dressing-room, but it was an uncomfortable bed of the fold-up family, and when he came in to-night it was folded against the wall, and he did not know exactly where its particular blankets were kept. He looked at it, thinking, "God! If I could only sleep here for a night or two!" But he allowed himself to be daunted by the problem of the blankets, and he went, as usual, to the room he shared with Marie.

But each was too angry to speak, and the presence of each was fuel to the other's anger.

Osborn was wakened in the morning by Marie's attentions to the baby. Though he had gone to sleep turned as completely away from her as possible, in the night he had rolled over, and now he watched her quietly and sulkily in the grey dawn, with just one eye opened upon her above the rim of his bedclothes. If she looked he meant to close his eyes again quickly, pretending sleep.

But there was something about the frailty of her figure as she sat up in bed, turning to the table with the spirit-lamp and saucepan upon it, a quality of wistful charm in her little undressed head, which went towards softening him. She was quiet, too; she spoke no word, nor looked towards him. He watched her patiently waiting for the boiling of the milk; he watched the care with which she mixed the food; and then she got out of bed, not minding the stark cold, and gave the bottle to the drowsy baby. She bent over it for a minute, smoothing its downy head with her light fingers; then she propped the bottle comfortably for the baby, by some ingenious management of its bed-clothing, and looked at the clock by her bedside. After she had looked at the clock she stood hesitating for awhile and he knew what she was deciding.

She wanted five minutes more of that warm bed after a night broken, as usual, by the baby's demands; but it was time to get up and sweep and cook and light fires and lay Osborn's breakfast-table.

After all, it was Osborn who broke the silence between them, sulkily.

"I should give yourself five more minutes; you'll freeze out there."

Marie turned round quickly and looked at his long, comfortable outline under his pink quilt. She hesitated, then spoke in her natural voice, which he was secretly relieved to hear:

"It's half-past six; I'll have to dress."

"Poor old girl!" Osborn mumbled from his pillow. After she had gone quietly out, and he listened to the sounds of running water in the bathroom, and after she had come back, and he watched her again, one eye cocked furtively over the blankets, while she moved about quickly, he thought and considered and argued with himself about her. But, after all, she did as other women do, didn't she? She had a home and a husband and child, and she was bound to look after them, wasn't she? He gave her all he could, and sometimes it seemed to him—though he didn't mean to grouse—that she might have managed better. His mother, for instance, grown grey and quiet in the service of himself and his father, had worked wonders with the limited family money.

Had she been still alive, she might have given Marie a few wrinkles, perhaps....

There is little doubt that Mrs. Kerr the departed could have given her young daughter-in-law a few wrinkles had she met her—wrinkles of the most unprofitable kind upon her fair face; but as it was, Mrs. Kerr senior lay quietly afar off from No. 30 Welham Mansions, impotent to reform, and Osborn lay thinking his thoughts in silence while Marie, having dressed to petticoat and camisole, wreathed up her long and lustrous hair.

The baby sucked intermittently at his bottle.

When Marie had put on her blouse and skirt, and a pinafore to protect them, she went out without further conversation. Osborn wondered a little whether she sulked, but she was not sulking; she was only occupied much as he was, in thinking and considering and arguing with herself about him. She was modern enough to remain proud and critical and impatient after domestic experiences which would have gone far towards cowing the generation of women before her. Her mother had bowed beneath such experiences without so much as an inquiry or expostulation. As Marie hurried about with brush and duster, with black-lead and fire-fuel, as she stood over the purring stove, and watched toast and eggs and coffee come to their various perfections, each over its ring of flame, she was absorbed in wondering:

"It is I who am right? It's I who have the harder time? It's the woman upon whom everything falls? But can't it all be put right somehow? Couldn't I make him see?"

Something definite emerged from her prospecting, at least; the resolve to seek an understanding with Osborn, not now, over breakfast with its time-limit and its haste, but perhaps to-night, after dinner, when he'd come in, and been fed and rested, and had put on his warm slippers. She faced Osborn over the breakfast-table with a brightness which he was relieved to see; but after he had noted it with inward approval, he hid himself behind his newspaper; he wanted to say little; to get away very, very quietly.

He had known many men who had to fly before the domestic sirocco; he had laughed at and despised them in his heart. But—poor beggars! No doubt they had hidden themselves behind newspapers with a child-like faith in the impenetrability of the shield, even as he was hiding.

Poor beggars!

It was no better than the ostrich habit of tucking your head into the sand, to crowd yourself behind your morning paper. You felt awfully nervy behind it, and you kept a scowl handy. There was something in the tension which made you bolt your good food quickly, indifferent as your lunch would be presently, and which made you glad when you were ready to rise, and remark with a forced bonhomie:

"Well, so long, girlie! I must be off."

Marie followed Osborn out into the narrow hall, where now faint daubs marked the cream distemper, and helped him on with his coat, and found his gloves and muffler. "It's cold, dear," she said solicitously, "wrap up well."

"Oh, that's all right! Take care of yourself and baby. Good-bye!"

He stooped and kissed her lips quickly, avoiding her eyes, and went out whistling. A forlornness overtook her; she ran back through the dining-room to the window, and, leaning out, watched for him to emerge from the doorway below; when he came, and started down the street towards the tramcar terminus, she made ready to wave as she used to do should he look up.

But he did not look up, as he strode purposefully away. A few months ago he would have lagged a little, glancing up and waving frequently before he finally disappeared. This morning as she watched the thought smote: "When did he forget to wave to me? When did we leave off—all this?"

She remembered it was when she began to be so really busy, after the baby came. Baby was crying sometimes as they finished breakfast; she must hurry to him; it was time for his bath; he must have his bath, mustn't he? She couldn't help that. But she rather thought that perhaps this was the beginning of the end of all those dear smiles and salutes right down the street back to the girl above. Perhaps Osborn had looked up in vain many mornings, hoping to see her leaning out there, and at last had ceased to mind whether she were there or not.

A surprise came for Marie after lunch. She was making herself ready to carry her baby and her basket to the open-air market a street away, where the thriftier housewives of the neighbourhood shopped, when a delivery carman left at her door the handsome baby-carriage which Julia's note had sent Desmond Rokeby out post-haste to buy. Such a perambulator Marie had never hoped for, nor dreamed of; it boasted every luxury of contrivance, from the umbrella basket, slung to the handles, to its C-springs and its big, smooth-rolling tyres. In colour it was French-grey, extremely dainty; and it came with Desmond's love to his godson and a tactfully expressed hope that his gift had not been forestalled. So Marie put her baby in, and her basket, too; and after she had finished admiring her pink-and-white son among the lavender upholstery, she wheeled him out proudly to the open-air market, where the equipage drew forth delighted comments from the vendors who knew her well. She did not come straight home, as she had to do when carrying the baby; but, her purchases finished, she turned towards the Heath, and wheeled about proudly there for a while, envying no one, not the smart nurses who propelled their smart perambulators, nor the few mothers who strolled beside them. She felt that, with the finest baby in town in a French-grey and lavender chariot, she could meet and beat any turnout of the kind.