CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jean never knew by what power she left the train at the right station,

nor how she sat as usual for a few moments on Martha's bed and told

her of the meeting. She had no memory of kissing Martha good-night nor

coming to her own room.

But she must have done these things, because another day was creeping

out of the east, and she still sat by the window, trying to think, but

the motive power of her brain was dead. There was no explanation, no

reason, no wonder at it. Analysis and explanation were the pipings of

crickets, extinguished in a crash of thunder. There was only the thing

itself. She loved Gregory Allen with a love that she had not known

existed. It was a terrific wave, crushing upon her from the outside. It

was so far beyond her will or control, that the thought of beating it

back was drowned in its own flood.

All her life led to the moment when she had stood in the dark alone

with him and been afraid. All her life she had been walking blindfolded

to this point of blazing light. It reached back to the days when she

had longed so passionately for something to happen, for something to

smash the sordid monotony of dutiful acceptance. It held all the beauty

to which she had clung so desperately. It had been the driving power

of the wind over the hills, the lashing of the rain, the sparkle of

the sun on the Bay. It had whispered its reality in the moving leaves,

called loudly in the wash of the waves on the sand. It had always been

there close, all through her lonely childhood, the dreary years of

college, and in those long days in the open with Herrick. It had come

close in the wrapping fog and the crackle of the beach fires in the

little coves where she and Herrick had talked for hours with dead poets.

Jean buried her face in her hands. For in the dawn, creeping up the

river, Herrick was coming toward her. In the motionless void between

two days, he stood looking at her. And Jean knew that behind the fear

that had dragged her to the gas-bracket above the bamboo table was the

longing for Gregory's arms about her.

When the tips of the trees lit to gold, Jean rose and crept into bed.

* * * * *

It was almost three o'clock when Gregory let himself into the

apartment, and the air of the place, closed for weeks, rushed at him as

if it had been waiting. With the force of a physical blow it shattered

the peace he had won in the long battle he had fought, alone in his

office, after leaving Jean. He opened the windows slowly. Then he came

back again into the living-room and the weary round began again.

He wanted Jean with the pent-up longing of years. He wanted her with

a need from which there was no escape. He had always wanted her, from

the first moment when he had come late to the appointment and Jean

had explained the scheme to him in her brisk, business-like fashion.

He had wanted her all through the summer, through every moment of it.

Through the long talks alone, while Mary studied or slept in the room

beyond. Through every gay dinner, and boring interminable week-end.

He had wanted her desperately when he ran away to the Palmer place.

And his need had thrust almost through his consciousness during those

interminable hours coming back to her.

He had wanted her as she crossed the office only a few hours before,

and he had wanted her terribly as she leaned across the table, the

faith in her clear eyes flicking to life all the dreams that life with

Margaret had killed.

And up in the reeking blackness shutting them in alone together, high

in the air, with Jean across the room, blocked faintly in that same

blackness, he had wanted her. And he had resisted. Against the current

dragging him to the center of life, he had clung to his silly little

rock of--what? No thought of Margaret had entered his mind. No fear

or convention. Neither custom nor social rule had anything to do with

this. Of what had he been afraid?

Gregory's forehead was damp, and he slumped low in his chair. He might

have held her in his arms, crushed her resistance, kissed her to the

ease of that gnawing hunger within.... What if she had resisted?... And

she might not have resisted. She was no girl of eighteen, desired for

the first time. She was a woman. She had been married, married to a

libertine.

"Good God!" Gregory jumped to his feet. "I am rotten, rotten clear

through."

But the pictures would not go. Their vividness tortured Gregory to

motion and until dawn he walked a beaten path through the living-room,

across the dining-room, back to the living-room through the hall. At

five o'clock he threw himself on the couch.

He slept heavily until eight, then took a cold bath and prepared some

coffee. He was at the office before nine. The desk was piled with a

month's accumulation that had gotten beyond Benson, and Gregory was

grateful that it had. He worked through without a break until four

o'clock. Then he segregated the most pressing business, packed his

portfolio and caught the Long Island Express.

Puck came hurtling down the path, screaming: "Daddy! My Daddy!"

Margaret came, too, not hurriedly, but with just the right degree of

welcome and surprise in her eyes. Her cool lips took the meaningless

kiss that still passed between them on all their meetings and partings,

for, with the death of all reality, they had grown wonderfully careful

of these insincerities. She led the way to the house, while Puck

capered beside him, and they had an early dinner.

Later, Gregory lit his pipe and wandered through the woods in the dusk

with Puck, but often Puck jerked his hand and cried impatiently:

"Daddy, aren't you listening to Lady Jane?"

Gregory stayed until the following Wednesday. When he went back,

Margaret and Puck went, too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was the end of October. The trees in the parks and along the

Palisades were bare, but the sun still shone and children danced in the

streets to the music of the hurdy-gurdies. On Fifth Avenue, women in

costly furs drove from shop to shop, buying greedily. Starved through

their long summer with the mountains and the sea, they bought laces

and jewels and still more costly furs. Down in the restaurants of the

foreign quarters, the proprietors had taken in the little tables and

dismantled the artificial gardens. The husbands of the women in costly

furs now dined at home or in their uptown clubs.

Everywhere people settled to their winter's work. The strikers and

manufacturers were locked in a death grip, and Jean often sat up half

the night with Rachael. Rachael was whiter and more flamelike than

ever. She never mentioned Tom, but Jean knew that he had married a girl

of his own faith and that Rachael knew.

Then, on the fifteenth the manufacturers capitulated. With almost all

their demands granted the strikers went back to work. No jubilant mass

meeting marked the victory. Worn with the long fight the workers went

back quietly. Jean felt as if something had gone out of her life. The

settlement left vacant hours, and she wanted something to fill every

moment. For the thought of Gregory was always waiting, ready to slip in.

From dreading ever to see him again, Jean had passed through hours when

nothing else mattered, dizzy hours when she juggled with excuses for

communicating with him and persuaded herself that it was the perfectly

natural thing to do. And there were hours, lying awake at night, when

she did not think of herself at all, but went round and round the

endless circle of Gregory's motives. That he had shared her fear never

entered Jean's mind, for so deep and hidden was the longing to believe

that he cared, that not even Jean's analysis dragged it to light. One

impossible reason after another Jean grasped and held for a little

while, and then it slipped away. He was busy. He meant to ring up or

write or come--and didn't. Summer and winter were two different worlds

in New York. He had been bored and lonely then; now his days were full.

Jean held to this firmly, and, as the weeks slipped away, succeeded in

believing it. Still, she was glad when Mary at last stopped mentioning

him. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Jean and the doctor made up the list

of invitations to the tea, with which, in what now seemed another life,

they had threatened Gregory. Dr. Mary jabbed her pencil through his

name, which headed the old list made up that hot June night.

"It's your business, of course, Jean, and you can do as you like; but

_I_ wouldn't ask him, for anything. I don't believe it will make any

difference, and we have Fenninger. It's really going to look terribly

imposing, the building plans and the lot diagram, too."

"I don't want to ask him. Fenninger will be the whole show and more."

But, a week later, as Jean moved through the crowded rooms, explaining

the same things over and over, receiving congratulations and the more

substantial promises of checks, her eyes kept wandering to the door.

And she knew she was hoping that somehow Gregory would come. There was

no way that he could know, and yet----For what seemed interminable

lengths of time Jean kept her back deliberately to the door, and then,

when she was sure that it did not matter to her at all, turned, and for

one brief second--so vividly was he in her imagining--saw him with his

badly fitting clothes and the happy twinkle in his eyes.

When the last guest had gone, Mary dropped into a chair and groaned.

"It was a success all right, but thank God it's over. Jean, that is my

idea of Hell."

Jean was looking out to the bare trees of the Park. It was empty, and

bits of paper blew in a gusty wind about the paths. A leaden sky hung

low and the arc-light was not yet lit. Jean shivered.

"It's mine, too," she said, and the tears suddenly welled in her eyes

and ran down her cheeks.

"Why, Jean, what on earth is the matter?"

Jean brushed at the tears and tried to smile. "I suppose I've been more

worried about this going off well than I knew. _It's_ finished, too;

nothing left but to build now. It's rather like a death somehow."

Dr. Mary looked thoughtfully at Jean's back. It was not at all like

Jean to cry because a piece of work was successfully finished. In fact,

she had never seen Jean cry before.

"I shouldn't wonder if you didn't need a rest, Mrs. Herrick, in spite

of that energy of yours. I don't believe you had a decent, leisurely

meal all those last weeks of the strike. Will you take one?"

For a moment Jean did not know whether she was going to laugh or burst

into an uncontrollable fit of crying. She turned away from the window.

"Certainly not. I never felt better in my life. It's partly these

candles. I hate the things. They always look like funerals or a church.

Let's have some practical, plebeian light."

She switched on the electricity and then went round blowing out the

candles. By the time they were all out, Jean had worked up a disgust

of herself that deceived the doctor.

"It's not less work that I need, but more. I haven't had a fight with

Pedloe for a month, and the strike's so terribly settled I feel as if

there was never going to be another dispute worth mentioning between

capital and labor for the rest of my natural life."

"Cheer up. Society is beautifully rotten yet. Besides, just think of

that talk you're scheduled for on--Municipal Housekeeping, I believe

you said, Mrs. Herrick?"

"Garbage, Dr. MacLean, garbage, flies and infant mortality."

They laughed. "Jean, really we women are a scream, though no man would

draw that out of me with red-hot pincers. Why, in the name of common

sense, has everything got to be Housekeeping?"

"Because we've been locked up so long that we're afraid of the open.

And we haven't got over the idea that we have to placate men, even yet,

with a suffrage organization in every State. They still like to think

of us, running between the cradle and the stove, so every mortal thing

we do we've got to hitch up some way to a home. Decent milk, and the

regulation of food prices, and garbage, divorce, child labor, widows'

pensions, are all 'National Housekeeping,' and it sounds as if we had

only moved into a larger house."

"Is that what you're going to tell them to-morrow? If it is, I'm going

to stay right here and go, even if Third Cousin Nelly never speaks to

me again. And she won't. I slipped out of it for Thanksgiving, and

she's only got this one turkey left."

"You can go and eat it in peace, for I wouldn't have you at the meeting

if you begged me on your knees. There are depths of depravity and

duplicity in me that you have never guessed. You've never seen me being

gracious."

"You weren't so bad to-day."

"Not a circumstance. A mere nothing to what I shall accomplish on

Tuesday."

They smoked in silence for a while, and then Dr. Mary said suddenly:

"Some day I am going to write an article on the Biological Why of

Women's Faith in Each Other."

"Outline it now. Maybe I can incorporate some of it in the talk."

"I can't. I don't know myself. It's not written yet. But it is funny,

isn't it, how women in the aggregate do annoy one, and yet at bottom

each one of the mass has the same qualities of the individual woman,

who keeps our faith burning. I once went to a conference of women

physicians, and it almost drove me wild. There's something about my own

sex en masse that depresses me dreadfully. And yet, each one of those

doctors was an able woman, and I would have enjoyed an hour with her

more than with any man I had ever met."

"I know. I believe in my congress idea, but sometimes I wish I could

put it over without ever having to go near anybody. Trade Unions and

Consumers' Leagues and things like that aren't so bad, but these

clubs!--And yet it is just where most of the energy is going to waste.

They always make me feel like an overgrown, gawky boy, and as if all my

clothes were on wrong."

A few days later, as Jean stood on the raised dais waiting for the

well-bred clapping to cease, she almost wished she had urged Mary to

come. She could never do it justice, never.

The perfectly appointed clubrooms were crowded with beautiful gowned

women all looking toward her in polite interest. There was no

enthusiasm and no inattention. Beneath their interest in her as a

public person, was a restrained curiosity as to her as a woman. Jean

had long ago become used to being considered a growing force in her

world, but she knew these women had gauged to a cent the price of the

furs she had laid off in the anteroom and that the simple way she did

her hair, in a rather tight wad at the nape of her neck, was in some

way connected in their minds with indifference to masculine interest or

inability to capture it.

The applause ceased and the room rustled to silence. They sat waiting,

their white gloved hands graceful in their laps, their chins raised,

their well kept, unvital bodies in repose. Seen so, from the dais,

they all looked bewilderingly alike, as if many artists had faithfully

copied a model, varying as little as possible. Jean wondered what they

would do if she should begin:

"'Licensed prostitutes,' I am here this afternoon----"

She smiled. All the faces below smiled, one large smile cut up into

pieces.

Half way down the room, behind one of the pieces of the smile, Mabel

Dawson sized her up.

"Conceited as they're made. Because we know how to do our hair she

thinks we're feeble-minded."

Jean began to talk simply and convincingly in a way that held her

hearers but annoyed Mabel Dawson exceedingly.

"I don't wonder that her husband brought another woman into the house,

if she always explained things to him as if he were two years old."

Mabel then lost the drift of Jean's talk altogether while she tried to

trace the marks of suffering on her face.

Sitting well down to the front and looking lovely in a soft lavender

creation, Margaret Allen's mind was busy with the same problem. She

too was searching Jean's face for lines of suffering and could not

find them. A woman with Jean's past ought to look more as if she had

gathered up the broken threads and gone on. But Jean must be the kind

of woman who either never broke threads, or if she did, ripped out the

ravelings and wove new ones. There was nothing sad about her. In fact

her superb physique and very evident efficiency were rather hard. She

would always know exactly what she wanted and just how to get it. She

would walk straight to her point, in the low-heeled shoes that just

missed being square-toed and common-sense.

A patter of hands broke in on Margaret's cogitations. She listened for

a few moments. Jean was really making the subject interesting. A vague

envy began to crystallize at the back of Margaret's mind. She did not

want to dispose of garbage, but there were many things, in the last

twelve years, that she had wanted to do and had had to let go because

of Gregory and Puck. The chemicalization passed from envy of Jean to

annoyance with Gregory. It never occurred to him that she had given up

anything. She was never sure that he did not think she was a little

stupid. His tolerance of The Fortnightly was insulting, and yet women

like Jean Herrick thought it was worth while.

The meeting came to an end with sincere applause. Women gathered about

and begged for another talk, and proved by their questions a real

desire to do things besides hold meetings. Then two maids wheeled in

tea, and gossip bubbled up.

Holding her cup and the last crumbs of rich cake, Jean succeeded in

drawing to one side. Almost hidden behind an alabaster statue on an

ebony pedestal, she was studying the faces about her, when a soft voice

startled her so that she almost dropped the cup on the velvet rug.

"Oh, Mrs. Herrick, I just couldn't not speak to you." Margaret often

gave her sentences small twists that ornamented them. Jean smiled.

"Was the urge as great as that, really?'

"Yes, indeed. That was a wonderful talk! Besides, I almost feel as if

we were old friends already. I'm terribly interested in the tenements."

Jean's smile deepened but she looked puzzled. She met such a lot of

women like this, and was always forgetting them. Margaret might even

have been at the tea or sent a check.

Margaret laughed. "No, you haven't met me somewhere and forgotten,

though I shouldn't mind a bit if you had. I am Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Gregory

Allen."

Jean's fingers closed on the saucer. From a long way off she heard the

words dropping between herself and the woman before her:

"I am very glad."

The same power that dropped the words, lifted her hand, and Margaret's

came to meet it.

"I was terribly interested, and so glad that Mr. Allen was connected

with the tenements. It's so much more real than just ordinary houses,

more human and broader, you know. Sometimes I tell him he'll petrify in

all those angles and concrete, without the personal touch."

Jean grasped her brain and set it down outside, as she might have

lifted a screaming child and put it firmly in a chair. She would deal

with it later.

"There are dozens of things I would like to talk over with you.

Couldn't I presume on the acquaintance we haven't really got yet, and

ask you to take pot-luck with us? Now, please don't say you've got

something desperately interesting to interfere."

For years Jean remembered that moment, and the way in which Margaret

Allen receded, became more and more indistinct, almost vanished. But

not quite. Just at the moment she was dropping beyond the horizon an

icy hand clutched Jean's heart and Margaret was close again, smiling

and waiting for an answer.

"I'm sorry, but I'm really very busy. Winter is one long rush in this

kind of work."

"I know. It must be; that's why I'm not going to try and force you to

anything formal, just ourselves, and if you have a meeting afterwards

you can run away. We shall understand."

Jean felt as if she were in the grip of some small, persistent animal

that would never let go.

"Any night you say, Mrs. Herrick. But I'm just not going to let you

off." Her pretty lips curved in childish pleading. And Margaret

suddenly assumed a reality of her own. This was the woman whom Gregory

Allen had loved and married, whose life was bound to his, whose

babbling was always in his ears.

Jean almost laughed. She and Mary had paraded their bag of tricks,

their broader viewpoint, their richer personalities. He had been

interested, as he might have been interested in a play above the summer

level of Broadway, and had gone back to his home, to the stifling life

which evidently did not stifle him at all. Not all the big problems,

the genuine human needs that she had struggled with for the last two

months, had dulled the memory of that dinner when his need had called

so sharply to her, when she had wanted to take his head in her arms and

comfort him. And those moments in Rachael's room, when she had been

caught up and almost swept away by the biggest force that had ever

touched her life. And he? During these two months he had been quite

contentedly listening to this senseless chatter. He must have been,

since he had made no effort to escape it even for the brief visit that

common decency demanded.

"How about to-morrow, then? Don't you think you might just squeeze us

in?"

"If you will really understand and excuse me right after." She would

go and free herself from this power. She would go and see Gregory Allen

and this woman in the home they had made together. Pride and her own

sense of humor would do the rest.

"Indeed we shall. How about seven o'clock? Or is that a little late? I

can make it six-thirty if you'd rather?"

"Oh, no. Seven is quite all right."

Margaret wrote the address with a gold pencil she took from her

handbag. For a moment Jean felt linked to Margaret by her inability to

say that she already knew the number.

"I'll give you the 'phone, too, in case anything should happen, but

don't let anything, please."

"No, I won't." Jean took the slip, and at the same moment the chairman

glided up and began scolding Margaret for monopolizing Mrs. Herrick.

Jean was led away, and for another half hour she answered questions.

Then Margaret was before her again, delicious in a coat with fur cuffs

and a collar that framed her face like a huge leaf.

"Au revoir, until to-morrow at seven."

Margaret caught the envious glance of the chairman and made an intimate

little motion of farewell to Jean.

It was over at last, and Jean was walking along briskly in the coming

night. She was going to see Gregory Allen again. She was going to sit

at his table, with his wife and child, and talk of general things. She

was going to grasp this haunting power that held her days and crush it.

She would not be afraid after she had seen him there in his own world.

"I suppose she will tell him to-night--'Oh, Gregory, Mrs. Herrick is

dining with us to-morrow.'"

Jean smiled. He would be surprised. She could see his eyes widen in

that childish fashion that had come to make her feel----

"You fool. You unspeakable fool." Jean's scorn of herself before these

vivid pictures of a man, who had never given her the slightest right to

think he had any of her at all, lashed her pride to anger.

"You're thirty-four, you idiot. Suppose you do love him? What of it?

Maybe you won't after to-morrow night."

All the way down in the Subway the refrain beat in Jean's ears:

"Maybe you--won't. May-be you--won't. Mebbe youwon't. Mebbeyouwon't."

She let herself into Dr. Mary's empty apartment, and then telephoned

Martha that she had to work late. In the morning it would be different,

but to-night she could not describe the meeting, and Martha was always

interested in every detail.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It was a few minutes before seven when the maid showed Jean into the

Allen living-room. A little girl rose from a hassock and stood looking

at her quietly. Then she came forward and held out her hand.

"My mamma's not home yet, but I'm Puck."

Jean took the mite of a hand in hers. "And I am Mrs. Herrick."

"I know. I'm going to entertain you. Won't you sit down?" The brown of

Gregory's eyes was softened to hazel in Puck's, but the spirit in them

was his. "That's the nicest chair. My daddy likes it best." The tone

was a childish treble of Margaret's, but the decision with which she

pointed out that particular chair was the same with which Gregory in

the end had always won over hers or Mary's suggestions. A lump rose in

Jean's throat.

"Stop it," she whispered fiercely to herself. "You're in it now. You've

got to see it through."

Puck had returned to the hassock, where she sat with her brows drawn,

looking for a foothold in this, her first social struggle. As one grown

woman to another Jean smiled and said:

"I think it's going to snow, don't you?"

Puck's face cleared and she smiled back at Jean, exactly as Gregory

smiled, the light touching her eyes and then settling in her lips.

"I shouldn't be s'prised. I told Lady Jane that this morning." There

was a pause, as if she were weighing a sudden decision. "Would you like

to see Lady Jane? She's just back from the hospital."

"Indeed I should, if you're sure it won't hurt her."

"I don't believe it will, not for a few moments. I haven't put her to

bed yet."

Safe with Lady Jane in her arms, the manner of hostess dropped away.

Puck came close to Jean's chair, and turning up the filmy clothes

in which Lady Jane was arrayed, pointed to a leg glaringly new and

unscratched.

"It was a bad accident and she broke it, but my daddy said it _might_

have killed her. She was lucky, wasn't she? My daddy took her to the

hospital and they--they--imput--"

"Amputated?"

"Yes. They--ampt--they did that to the old leg and gave her a new one.

But I don't let anybody touch her, except me and daddy. He loves Lady

Jane too."

"I'm sure he does." Jean smoothed Lady Jane's lacy skirts with

trembling fingers.

"Do you _like_ her?" Puck asked it abruptly after a brief pause in

which Jean fought to hold fast her belief that she had come to kill her

own fear once and for all.

"I think she is one of the nicest persons I have ever met."

Puck dropped the subject and climbed to the arm of Jean's chair. "Tell

us a story," she demanded, "we love stories."

Jean put her arm about the slight body and her own throbbed at the

contact.

"What shall I tell you?"

"Well, I like Cinderella a whole lot and so does Lady Jane." She

stopped, looked straight into Jean's eyes and added: "Mamma doesn't

like me to have too many fairy stories, but my daddy tells me one when

I've been good enough. Am I good enough now for Cinderella?"

"I'm sure you're quite good enough for Cinderella," and Jean plunged

into the story before she yielded to the impulse to kiss Puck.

With additions of her own, highly pleasing to Puck, Jean wound the fate

of Cinderella to its climax. The coach was ready and the Prince about

to start on his quest, when the door opened and Margaret Allen hurried

in.

"Oh, Mrs. Herrick, what must you think of me! Those impossible

cross-town cars and there wasn't a taxi in sight. Did Puck give you my

message?"

"Indeed she did, and she's been entertaining me beautifully. We've

been----" In the nick of time Jean remembered--"having a lovely time."

Puck looked gratefully at Jean and slid from the chair.

"Now, Puck."

"Please, mamma, just till daddy comes. He'll be here awful soon now."

"Now, dear, don't tease." Margaret shook her head with gentle firmness.

"But, mother, maybe he'll let me stay to-night. He----"

"Puck, say good-night to Mrs. Herrick while I go and hurry Annie." She

smiled at Jean. "You see, it really is pot-luck, including delayed

dinner and family discipline."

Puck came and laid her hand in Jean's.

"It wasn't a lie, not a really lie, was it? Because we _did_ have a

lovely time."

"No, I don't think it was a lie."

"Next time you come, I'm going to ask my daddy first----"

But a key turned in the lock and Puck fled.

"Daddy!"

"Well, Pucklets!"

Jean knew that the man bent and lifted the child to his shoulder.

"And how goes it? Lady Jane had any fever to-day?"

Jean went quickly to the window. With the coldness of the glass against

her forehead, she tried to think. The murmur of Margaret's voice

directing Annie came from the kitchen. In the hall Gregory was hanging

up his overcoat. Puck's high treble fluted in a string of words that

conveyed nothing. Gregory had come home, back to this world of which he

was the central pivot. The very air was changed, charged with a vigor

that it had lacked. And she, an outsider, was closed in there with

them. Jean gripped the window-shelf and waited.

"Daddy, Mrs. Herrick likes Lady Jane too."

They were almost at the door. Without turning, Jean felt the man stop,

Margaret had not told him.

Jean turned and stood with her hands hanging quietly at her sides. Puck

clinging to him, Gregory crossed the threshold. It was Jean who spoke

first.

"Indeed I do like Lady Jane."

Jean felt that she was throwing the words to him, aiming blindly

and hoping that he would catch them. For the smile with which he

had listened to Lady Jane's symptoms was still in his eyes, as if

consciousness had been killed at that moment.

"Of course. Doesn't everybody love Lady Jane?"

He had caught the words. Across the child they looked at each other.

"This is a surprise."

Jean felt as if they were playing a game. A thousand things that she

had wanted to tell him during these weeks rushed to her mind. She felt

childish and excited, like Puck. "Yes----" She had intended to say

something about meeting Mrs. Allen yesterday, to enlighten Gregory as

much as she could, but she found herself facing the words "Mrs. Allen"

and she could not go on.

Then Margaret entered, trying to sum up in a rapid glance the measure

of her success in proving to Gregory that important people like Jean

Herrick thought her worth while cultivating. But there was no surprise

in Gregory, and Jean felt that Margaret was annoyed. She had set her

little stage and the actor wouldn't play.

"Come, Puck, have you said good-night to Mrs. Herrick?"

Puck cast one long, beseeching look at her father, but for once he

failed her. Without seeing her pleading, he bent and kissed her

good-night.

"Good-night, Puck; sleep tight."

Puck's shoulders straightened. There was forced politeness but no

friendliness now in her eyes as she held out her hand to Jean.

"Good-night, Mrs. Herrick."

Jean wanted to drop on her knees, put her arms about Puck and explain

straight into those stern, hurt eyes.

"Good-night," she said, and without another word, Puck marched out of

the room.

"Come, Mrs. Herrick, I'm afraid everything is spoiled as it is."

Margaret led the way to the dining-room and they sat down in a silence

that Jean felt was never going to be broken. When Margaret spoke, Jean

turned to her gladly.

"I've been thinking all day about what you told us yesterday and I'm

getting more excited every moment. Why, it's perfectly tremendous, that

idea of a woman's congress, something bigger than women have ever done

before. Mrs. Herrick is planning a general woman's congress, Gregory,

to deal with women's problems all over the country."

Gregory Allen did not answer. Margaret bit her lips with vexation and

then hurried along to cover the breach of his rudeness.

"Won't you tell me some more about it, Mrs. Herrick? You presented so

many new points, even in the Garbage Disposal, that I know I didn't

get half of them clear. As I understand it, all the clubs with civic

divisions already formed, will come together in a central body right

away? Don't you think that's a great idea, Gregory?"

Under pretext of passing him the crackers, Margaret made a last effort

to draw him in. Jean's anger vanished in pity for her. She was like a

bright moth buzzing helplessly against a silent, bronze Buddha.

What thousands of meals they must have had like this, Margaret's

enthusiasm pricking at his silence!

Jean had not wanted to talk about the Congress at all, but now she

plunged in, before Gregory could answer.

Beyond their voices Gregory sat, catching a phrase now and then that

interrupted the trend of his thought but did not turn it. Nothing was

real but the fact that Jean had come back into his days. Through no

action of his own, she was sitting at his table. He had closed a door

of his life and Fate had opened it.

"Don't put a pergola on the Auditorium."

In the past weeks Gregory had heard Jean's last words until sometimes

it had seemed to him that he would go mad. They were such ridiculous

words to have marked the end.

And here she was. So close that almost without a motion he could reach

and touch her hand--the firm, large hand that he could see without

looking at it--crumbling the bread beside her plate. With his eyes on

his own plate, he could see the outline of her throat, the even throb

of the strong pulse that beat at the base. Night after night, during

the last ten weeks, he had shut it away, forced it out of his vision

and gone on reading, while across the table Margaret sat embroidering

clothes for Puck.

He had closed and locked a door. Margaret had opened it. His brain beat

in a chaos of anger and gratitude and pity for Margaret.

"Gregory, just listen to this." They had reached the dessert without

Gregory's noticing that the maid had brought things or taken them away,

and without his uttering a word. Margaret's patience had reached its

limit, and she turned to him now with the same controlled impatience

with which she disciplined Puck.

"Mrs. Herrick believes that there are spiritual forces, just as real as

physical ones, like gravity and cohesion and all that, that are going

to waste because nobody has tried to channel them. Isn't that right,

Mrs. Herrick?"

Gregory was looking up now. Like a humming-bird Margaret flitted aside

to let the stronger force sweep him into the current.

"Yes, I believe that what we call personality is almost a concrete

thing. You can feel it, just as you can feel any force. It seems to me

there is a lot of this vital undercurrent in women."

And Gregory felt again the hall, packed with Jewish workers, and

Rachael leaning from the edge of the platform.... "How is Rachael?"

Jean wondered whether the words she was trying to grasp would ever

come within reach. Margaret looked with a puzzled frown from one to

the other. But she didn't care much what he said as long as he said

something.

"Rachael won the strike. But it took all the strength she had."

"You see, Gregory, I am not the only woman who believes in women." Jean

was grateful to Margaret for fluttering back.

"Evidently not."

"When we really get started we might have a special meeting to give the

men a chance to apologize. How would that do?"

Margaret covered her triumph with flippancy, as if only by

condescending to Gregory's interest could she keep him from lapsing

again. Jean visioned an evening at this level and knew she could not

face it. She glanced at her wrist-watch and then at Margaret.

"Do you really have to?"

"I'm afraid I do."

Jean pushed back her chair.

"I know you warned me. But won't you come soon again? I know how busy

you are and so I'm not going to set a day. Just ring up any time, if

you don't mind the informality. Perhaps, between us, we can convert

him."

Jean moved into the living-room to get her things and Margaret followed.

Gregory stood where he was. In a few moments Jean would be gone. The

maid would clear the things. He and Margaret would be sitting in their

usual places in the living-room. He would pretend to read to still

Margaret's comments on Jean. Jean's rumpled napkin lay beside her

plate. It seemed to belong intimately to her, although it had a large

embroidered "A" in the corner. It was a possession of Jean's and she

had gone a long way away and left it behind. She would never come back.

Gregory was positive of that. Why had Jean come? He did not know. But

she would never come back.

Gregory went into the hall and took his hat and overcoat from the

cupboard. Margaret's voice was insisting that Jean "ring up any time."

Jean was not answering.

Gregory came back into the dining-room with his overcoat on. Margaret's

surprise escaped in a swift glance, and then a smile of triumph lit her

eyes. She had won after all. She had forced Gregory from his usual

indifference to their guests into at least a semblance of what Margaret

called "common social decency." It was true that he did not look

over-gracious at the thought of escorting Jean home, but it was more

than he ever did for Frances or Mabel.

"Really, there's not the slightest need. I'm going straight down----"

Jean tried to remember what she had told Margaret she had to do, or

whether she had told her anything.

"I'm going down anyhow. I've got some things to do at the office."

Margaret followed to the elevator and they dropped from her world

together.

Outside Jean turned to Gregory.

"There is no need, really."

Her voice almost begged him not to come.

"I have to go to the office."

Without a word they began to walk, straight ahead, although that was

not the direction of the Subway station. Myriads of stars looked down

from a black, cold sky and the bare trees along the pavement creaked

in a rising wind. A few people hurried by, but the street was almost

deserted. Just before they came to the end, where it swerved into a

more brightly lighted one, Gregory stopped.

"Jean, why did you come?"

His voice was harsh, and Jean felt the rigidity of his body, although

they were almost a foot apart, and he did not touch her at all. She

tried to turn her eyes away. If she did not look at him she could lie.

But the desperate need in his drew her back.

"I had to. I had to know."

"You--didn't know?"

Jean shook her head.

"But you know, now?"

"Yes. I know."

There was a long silence in which all the tangle and pain of the last

weeks were swept away. In the next block a taxi rattled to a stop

before one of the huge gray stone apartments. A noisy trio got out

and went laughing across the sidewalk. That was another world, with

noise and confusion and aimless talk. In the world closing tighter and

tighter about them there was no noise, no confusion, no aimless talk.

It was still, filled with a depth of understanding beyond the reach of

words.

The chauffeur slammed the door, mounted, and the taxi came swaying and

rattling toward them. Gregory signaled and it lurched to a stop at the

curb. With her hand still in his, Jean moved toward it. She got in and

Gregory stepped in after her.

"Where to, sir?"

"Gramercy Park," Jean said quietly, and Gregory closed the door. He

took her in his arms and kissed her to weakness.

"It had to be, Jean, from the beginning."

"I know." Jean drew closer in his hold.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Jean's work now took shape to her as something visible and apart. It

was the system of wires that ran through life, connecting the days. The

dynamo that kept it all vibrating was her love.

The depths of its peace surprised her. She loved, in secret, a married

man. She had met his wife, eaten at their home, held their child in her

lap. She had not only broken the standards of society, which did not

matter at all, but she had broken what she had believed were her own.

These did not matter either. There was nothing degrading in slipping

away to meet Gregory, for nothing could degrade their love any more

than a small boy could degrade the sun by throwing mud at it.

Christmas came. Applicants flooded the office, but Jean snatched as

many hours as she could. When it was possible they had lunch together,

and she often worked at night to make up for the teas they had in the

quiet tea-room in the upper Thirties. They always went a bit earlier

than the crowd and had an alcove to themselves. Jean had a sensuous

delight in the contrast of leaving the office behind her, the waiting

room never empty, the staff of extra helpers, the jangling 'phone,

and then--this other world with Gregory. The place had once been a

brownstone mansion, with carved staircases and pendulous chandeliers

of crystal. Heads of baby angels looked down from the cornices and

the shadows of stately men and women seemed always to lurk in the

corners, aloof and disdainful, but curious of this new generation that

smoked and talked immoderately on all subjects, at fragile tables,

painted in strange colors. Waitresses, in chintz polonaises and

powdered hair, served tea and muffins at extravagant prices. The same

girl always served them, and Jean felt as if the alcove was theirs.

It was the nearest they had to a home together. Here they retailed

gossip and talked over their work. Gregory was giving every spare

moment of his time to the designs for the auditorium and Jean loved

to have him consult her even when the technical details were beyond

her understanding. That he needed her in this way filled Jean with a

warm glow, a distinct physical reaction that softened the outlines of

her whole body. Coming from a happy hour with Gregory, Jean tackled

problems that had troubled the office for weeks, and, as Berna said,

"simply bored through them!"

Jean rarely thought of Margaret, and, when she did, it was as of one

of their acquaintances. If Margaret had not been Gregory's wife, Jean

would have enjoyed telling him about her. She could not feel personal

about Margaret. She did not even resent her. In the natural world there

were peacocks and orchids and slugs and worms; there were small, useful

animals and needful growing things, and beautiful poisonous fungi that

seemed to exist for no definite purpose. They all followed their own

law. So there were Kittens and Tigers and Herricks and Marys and Jeans

and Margarets and Pats. They were all different, and all needed. The

mistake was in misunderstanding and confusing values. She had done this

when she had married Herrick and Gregory had done it when he married

Margaret.

But the really wrong thing, the wicked thing, was to be afraid. To

refuse because one had not the courage to accept. To grow too weary

spiritually to reach out and grasp the next rung of one's development

and so swing up and up to the height of one's possibility. After a

meeting with Gregory, Jean had often to make an effort to keep from

running, so close was this tie between the spirit and the flesh.

On Sundays, when Gregory could get away without too greatly disturbing

the plan of life in which he had so long acquiesced, or too greatly

disappointing Puck, they went for long walks in the country. Jean lied

to Mary and to her mother about these walks. She wanted every scrap,

even the knowledge of their existence, to herself. Sometimes, at the

last moment a complication arose, impossible to overcome, and the walk

was postponed. Neither Jean nor Gregory ever asked why or referred

to it again. They accepted, without the indignity of complaint, the

conditions of their loving.

Gregory was happy, too. And, although, unlike Jean, he never realized

in his muscles the spiritual values of their love, he did feel that

life was a bigger and deeper thing than he had ever dreamed. Margaret's

well-meaning scratching at his interests no longer annoyed him. He felt

that she had been cheated, made in one of the small molds, when there

were so many larger ones in which she might have been shaped.

The day before New Year, Jean took the afternoon off and they went for

a long tramp through the snow in Jersey. It was a glorious day with

blue sky and sunshine, faintly warm on the hill crests. They walked

until dusk and then had tea before a log fire in a little French

roadhouse, where the fat wife of the proprietor insisted on Jean's

taking off her shoes and putting on a pair of Gustave's red carpet

slippers while the shoes dried.

Jean laughed. "I shall never understand why such a healthy-looking,

able-to-manage-herself being gets so much mothering. Every night in

winter I have to restrain mummy by force from feeling if my stockings

are damp. I wish you knew mummy, Gregory. She's so impossible to

describe, but she makes such ripping anecdotes."

"I do feel rather cheated, but I have a pretty clear conception. I

think she's like this."

He drew a small shaft, firm at the base, tapering to a point.

"Mummy to the life," Jean chuckled. "Now do Mary."

"That's harder." The pencil poised over the paper some time before he

made a line.

"There. That's as near as I can get, but I'm not sure that the

proportions are right."

It looked like two triangles, one imposed on the other, apex to apex.

"What's that in geometry? It's not like anything in life. Poor Mary,

why does she come to a point in the middle and then flare again?"

"Because that's what she does. I always had the feeling with her, more

than with any one I ever met, that she was spiritually constructed in

sections. She has the ground work of one kind of person, but she isn't

that kind. She started out planted firm on the earth, then she spired

to a point, refused to end there, wanted to get back to earth again,

couldn't, and so her soul built another triangle, on top of the first.

She ends in a firm base again, but it's in the air. Now what do you

suppose she would say if you told her--about us? She might say almost

anything."

"Why, I know exactly what she'd say."

"What, Infallible One?"

"She'd say that it was none of her business."

Gregory laughed. "I suppose she would. After all, she is almost always

right."

It was dark before they started back. With the ending of their days

they always grew a little silent. Small, clear stars pricked the black

and the moon peered timidly over the ridge top. They walked through

the dry snow hand in hand. Twice Gregory stopped, drew Jean into his

arms and kissed her. It made them both giddy to kiss like that, alone

in the open, under the stars. Jean's lips clung to his, and when his

hold loosened, she drew him to her again.

The deck of the ferryboat was deserted and they stood together in the

stern, watching the ice cakes swirl in the black water. A cold wind

swept down the river and whipped their faces. When the boat docked,

Gregory took a quick kiss.

"It was a great walk."

Jean nodded.

"Happy New Year," she whispered, and led the way down the gangplank.

On New Year's morning Jean astonished Martha by going to early

church with her. Martha asked for no reason, but her heart sang its

thanksgiving as they trotted along through the clean crispness of the

New Day. It was only six o'clock, but the church was full. The high

altar, white in its frostwork of sheerest lace, blazed with candles.

The air was heavy with the odor of thick white flowers and incense that

never quite died out. Through it, like a refreshing draft, came the

woodsy smell of greens and berries.

Abject with gratitude and humility, Martha slipped into the last pew

and Jean knelt beside her. It was like dropping back through the years

into her childhood. From force of association, Jean leaned her head on

the pews in front and closed her eyes. She did not pray but she felt

strangely near a God.

After a moment she stole a look at Martha, just as she used to do when

she was little and wanted permission to get up and sit in the seat. It

was queer how a motion could start an old train of thought. As strongly

as if she were feeling it now, she remembered the anger that had always

stirred her when her mother went on praying, without seeing the look.

She had always hated the way Martha knelt, almost crouched, in the

last pew. It had always made her want to walk straight on, up to the

very altar itself, and face God standing, with her eyes open. If people

loved God, as they said they did, why were they so afraid of him? If

this was His house, why did they sneak around in it like burglars? How

furious it had made her! And now, nothing had changed: Martha still

crept into the last pew and crouched before her God, and it did not

make Jean angry at all. Instead, it made a lump come into her throat,

and down to the depths of her she was glad that Martha had her God.

She had Gregory.

A young priest entered and the service began. Jean rose and knelt and

made the proper responses. Words that she could not have recalled in

any other setting, came spontaneously to her lips. While row after

row of communicants went to the rail, she knelt, her head bowed. The

monotonous murmur:

"Take and eat this--the body and blood of Christ which was given for

thee, preserve thy body and soul to everlasting life."

Over and over, row after row, hung a background for her thoughts.

"Take, eat--preserve thy body--everlasting life."

Against it, she walked in the dark with Gregory and felt his lips

seeking hers.

"--and may the blessing of God Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ remain

with you always. Amen."

The young priest, followed by his assistant, moved across the chancel.

Every head bowed before his going. There was a moment of silence, as if

the earth had stilled, while God Himself went back to His own; then a

rustle and people rose.

Martha and Jean were the first out. Jean slipped her arm into her

mother's.

"Mummy, I'm terribly disappointed, but that belated Christmas present

isn't done yet. You can't have it before Tuesday."

Martha pressed Jean's arm.

"I've had my present, Jeany, and it's made me wonderfully happy."

Jean smiled down at her. They walked along quickly for a few blocks,

and then Martha said:

"Which do you think Mary would like better, Jean, chestnut dressing for

the turkey, or just plain?"

CHAPTER THIRTY

In March, before the actual building of the tenements began, Jean and

Gregory went away for a week-end. They had decided on the spur of the

moment and taken the train like two truant children. Their plan was to

get off wherever it looked attractive and stop at the first farmhouse

that would take them in.

The train was a popular express and crowded, so they had to stand until

the first stop was reached. Then Jean got a seat and Gregory went into

the smoker. With her elbow on the windowsill and her chin in her hand,

Jean gazed into the fleeing fields and was glad that Gregory was not

there. It was almost too much, the deep hollows still snow-filled, the

bare earth of the upper stretches, the faint green of swelling buds,

and the two days before them. No duties to intervene, no appointments

to keep. It was their first interlude of almost perfect freedom. But

there were going to be many more in the summer ahead.

The train had made two stops. There were plenty of seats now. Jean

looked up and saw Gregory coming towards her. For a moment she had a

mixed feeling of complete possession and at the same time of personal

isolation. He was hers, so completely, so inevitably hers, and yet this

was the first time they had gone away together, stolen a little piece

of life for their own. It was a diminutive honeymoon, but she couldn't

say that to him. As she moved over and made room for him beside her,

she realized how little they knew of each other's daily habits, their

methods of doing personal things, and yet the way Gregory dropped into

the place she made for him, gave her the feeling of having been married

to him for a long time. She wondered what he was thinking.

But evidently Gregory was concerned with no such complicated analysis,

for he turned to her presently:

"No place has hit the mark yet?"

"I don't believe I've been looking. I've just been soaking."

"Let's toss. Heads, the next; tails, the one after."

It was heads. Jean settled in her seat. Gregory looked at her and

smiled. The smile deepened. He could not help but think of Margaret.

Whichever way it had fallen, she would have suggested throwing again.

The second station "might be so much better."

"You're a brick."

"Perfectly true, but why at this particular moment?"

"The explanation's much too subtle for your feminine mind."

"Because I didn't suggest tossing again?"

"Well, I'll be darned! How did you guess that?"

"You're a brick," Jean grinned. "As dense, every bit."

They got off at the next station, to the astonishment of the solitary

native waiting for the down train, and struck across the fields. When

they came to a forked road they stopped.

"We'll take turns at these decisions. You first."

"North."

They walked a mile between rickety fences that seemed to go on forever.

Gregory looked out of the corner of his eye and Jean laughed.

"Did you do it on purpose?"

"If there isn't a break before that big maple down there, we'll call

that a turn."

They reached the maple.

"Left," shouted Gregory, without stopping to reconnoiter.

They crossed a field, boggy with snow-filled ruts, and climbed a low

rise. Directly beneath lay an old farmhouse with a sagging brown roof

and red window casings, dulled by generations of sun and storm. A woman

in a blue apron moved across the brown, bare earth behind the house to

a white chicken run. Jean thought of the Portuguese ranch where she and

Herrick had gone on their honeymoon, with the silent woman and the cows

wandering over the hills.

"It wasn't _me_, that's all; it just wasn't me."

A very old dog rose from the sunshine, sniffed dutifully as they came

up on the stoop, and lay down again. Gregory knocked on the screen

door, and a girl with a baby in her arms opened it. She listened

without interest while Gregory explained, and went off without a word.

In a moment they heard her shrill:

"Ma, oh _ma_!"

The woman who had been feeding the chickens appeared, wiping her hands

on her apron. She had a lumpy, overworked body, but her face had in it

the patience of the earth, and there was something of spring in the

pale blue eyes.

"Well, I guess we kin fix you up, seein' it's only for a couple of

days. We couldn't take permanents yet, the spring cleanin' ain't done."

"There's the little room up back, ma?"

"How about the one over Uncle's? You could fix that up--it don't want

much more than airin'."

Jean and Gregory waited while the two women settled the matter. The

decision was in favor of the big one over Uncle John's.

"Mattie'll show you." The older woman took the baby and the girl led

them up a narrow white staircase, uncarpeted and spotless, that

zigzagged to the floor above.

At the end of the hall she opened a low door, painted white and

fastened with a hand-made latch. They entered a huge room, whitewashed,

with white wainscoting, white matting and a great white bed, the most

spotless room Jean had ever seen. Ancient apple trees brushed the four

gleaming windows and the cluck of chickens came from the yard. The

smell of the earth, warmed slightly in the spring sun, and a faint

fragrance from swelling trees, flooded it.

Jean reached out and touched the baby green of apple leaves. It made

her think of the old pine and her attic room, and of how often she had

reached out to shake the fog diamonds from the needles and wish that

something would happen, anything to break the monotony. The old pine

was thousands of miles away and that self years in the past. Inwardly

and outwardly she now lived in another world. And yet, looking down

the years, Jean could put her finger on no moment of sudden change. It

must all have been there, from the beginning, in herself; her right of

way through the world of action, which she had once believed held no

entry for her; her marriage with a man who came to her from one woman's

arms and left her for another; this wonderful love that was so right

in spite of the world's standards. And the future? It was there, just

as the present had been in the past. Jean leaned out of the window and

drew the warm sweetness into her. For the first time in her life she

felt part of a scheme, obedient to a law that worked on without her

will.

The girl went out of the room and Gregory put down the grip. He

came and stood beside her. She turned and laid her face against his

shoulder. He stroked her hair gently, a new tenderness in his touch.

After a moment she raised her head and smiled.

"Let's go out and explore."

From the kitchen window Mrs. Morrison watched them. "Seems like a nice

couple and powerful fond. Look, Mattie, he's holdin' her hand."

Hand in hand, Gregory and Jean were peering into the chicken run. The

girl shrugged:

"I guess they ain't been married long. He won't be doin' it this time

next year."

"Don't talk so shaller, Mat. What if he ain't? It can't be spring all

year."

"No need fur it to be winter, either."

"The sooner you git over thinkin' them things, the better it'll be fur

you, my girl. You got one of the best men livin'. There ain't a better

provider than Jim in this county. Kissin's good enough, but it don't

fill the wood box or spread the table."

The girl looked sullenly after the retreating figures.

"I'm sick o' livin' with people that's good providers. It's like havin'

nothin' but bread mornin', noon and night. I want some----"

"That'll do, Mat, I don't stand fur no such talk as that. When Jimmy

begins runnin' round and needin' shoes, his ma and pa kissin' ain't

goin' to put 'em on him. Besides a woman shouldn't want things like

that. It's fur men to think of them things. Hand me out the bread pan;

I'll mix up some biscuits, seein' we ain't enough loaves."

The girl handed it to her. "I suppose I'd better spread a clean cloth."

"Take the big one in the second drawer, and you might put the wax plant

in the center."

As the girl worked, she kept glancing to the window, but Jean and

Gregory were out of sight, beyond a dip in the orchard.

"It is nice," she said wistfully.

Then the baby whined and she went to him. As soon as he saw her he

stopped and gooed. The girl laughed and picked him up.

"You old false alarm you!" She burrowed in his neck and he squirmed

with delight.

Out in the orchard, Gregory and Jean wandered under the apple trees,

great old things, cumbered with dead branches.

"They can't have made a cent from this place for years, and it would

pay with a few hundreds put into it. But this eastern land, a lot of

it, is just like the families, run to seed. The men who have enough

kick in them to do anything go away. A place like this always makes me

feel wonderfully business-like and efficient, as if I could make the

dead thing live again."

"It doesn't make me feel business-like. It makes me feel vague and

poetic and--and unresponsible. I can't imagine anything more peaceful

than those old, useless, unfruitful things, all budded over with baby

green. I wish humans could grow old like that, keeping the possibility

of spring."

"That's properly vague and poetic, but I don't know that it would be

such fun. Think of looking seventy and feeling twenty!"

"It would be better than looking seventy and feeling it. A wee bit

of spring, every year, right to the end, would be better than none.

Wouldn't it?"

Gregory laughed. "Half a loaf better than none? Not for me. I'd rather

have nothing than a tantalizing dab like that."

A cold finger touched Jean's heart. Were their snatched hours more than

a "dab," a half loaf to him? They were glorious hours, but after all

they were only crumbs. Jean shook off the feeling, and her hand slipped

into Gregory's.

"Well, when you're seventy and I'm sixty-five, you'll be so jealous of

my little green leaves, you won't know what to do."

"Will I?" Gregory held her close and rubbed his cheek softly against

her hair.

"We're never going to grow old and gnarled, Jeany."

"I'll come and stick a little green leaf on your deadest bough."

"Better give it to me now." Gregory turned her lips to his and kissed

her. "That was a nice little leaf," he whispered.

They rambled on again, turning up dead leaves for the small celandine

that peeped out in surprise that spring was really come. As they turned

to go back, the clang of a bell, mellowed by distance, reached them.

"I'll race you." They started, Jean a yard ahead. In a moment Gregory

was in front of her. He shook his head reprovingly.

"Why, Jean Herrick, I'm astonished! What would Dr. Fenninger say?"

"Put me under observation in a psychopathic ward."

Gregory kissed her in the hollow of her throat.

"For that, he'd commit me to Matteawan."

The midday dinner was a heavy affair, but both Jean and Gregory won

Mrs. Morrison's approval by their appetites.

"I do despise to cook for them peckish people, that looks as if they

was choking down every mouthful. We're all hearty eaters here; even

Uncle treats his vittles like he enjoyed 'em."

The old man at the end of the table looked up. "You're a powerful good

cook, Mary. I ain't never sat down to a meal at your table that didn't

hit the mark."

He was a very old man, small and withered, with a wrinkled brown face

and kind blue eyes that peered like the wildflowers from the dead

leaves. His meal was a bowl of oatmeal, covered with yellow cream, and

a special kind of brown bread on a blue willow plate. His defense

of his niece's cooking was his only part in the conversation, but he

filled the room with the sense of his presence. Like spring warmth from

the frozen earth, peace radiated from him. When he had finished his

cereal and cream he left the room.

Mary Morrison looked after him.

"He's the best man that ever lived. I've ate and slept in the same

house with him for almost fifty years and I ain't never seen him cross

or heard him say an unkind thing."

"He ain't got nothin' to cross him, ma; not that I'm saying he ain't

good."

"There's always things to cross folks, when they're the crossin' kind.

I never seen any one yet that couldn't git crossed, give 'em half a

chance. Sometimes you shame me, Mattie, with that shaller talk."

The girl began scraping the plates without answering. Mrs. Morrison

went on to Jean.

"Mattie here's the kind that no chip gets by, but life'll learn her.

I kin remember when Uncle had things to upset anybody when he was

younger, but he never let 'em. He'd just go off and read the Book a

spell and come back among folks smilin'. Why, he's read the Bible clear

through most two hundred times, and there's a stack of _Christian

Heralds_ out in the barn that reaches to the second loft. He don't read

nothin' else and he reads 'em all the time."

Mattie carried off the scraped plates, and her mother gathered up the

knives and forks. With the touch of the dirty dishes, she came back to

her everyday manner.

"Now you folks kin do anything you like. There's some books on the

shelf in the parlor, if you want to stay in, but most city folks want

to be outdoors every minute. It's right pretty over in the woods, but

the ground's damp yet, even in the sun. You'd better take a buggy

robe; we got a lot of old ones in the barn fur that."

Jean was already at the door, when Mrs. Morrison added:

"I clear forgot to ask your names; seem like I always know people when

they like the place."

Jean stepped into the outer hall.

"Murray," Gregory said after a brief pause.

"Murray. That's easy. We git some awful queer ones in summer, and I was

never no good at names. Mattie has to keep 'em straight."

She passed through the swing door with the tray of forks and knives,

"It's Murray, Mattie; Mr. and Mrs. Murray," Jean heard her say.

Jean went quickly out into the sunshine. Gregory waited until his pipe

was drawing well before he joined her.

For an hour they kept to the road that led up hill and then down into

the dogwoods, just beginning to swell with spring. At last they spread

the robe where the sun splattered through in golden pools and a little

creek gurgled as if it had done something very sly and clever in

stealing away from winter. Gregory lay with his head in Jean's lap and

they talked, the silences growing longer and longer, until, looking

down after an unusually long one, Jean saw that he was fast asleep.

It was the first time that Jean had ever seen Gregory asleep. She

wanted, with an almost irresistible need, to draw him closer. The

thought of Margaret Allen stabbed as it had never done before. Margaret

had nothing that was hers, but she had so much less than was her own.

And Gregory had so much less than was his. Between them Margaret stood,

clutching with each hand a part of what was theirs, giving nothing in

return.

Then the need to make Gregory happy, to yield for his happiness every

scrap of herself, to give everything that was beautiful, to drown in

this beauty the ugliness over which she had no control, and, if there

was anything unbeautiful in their own relations, to make it perfect,

swept Jean. There should be nothing but peace and content in her. Her

hand moved lightly over Gregory's hair. It was thick and soft, with a

deep wave that drew her hand.

Herrick's hair had been fine and rather silky. Again Jean wondered at

the separateness of her two selves.

The sun was going when Gregory woke. He had slept deeply and woke with

a dazed, child look in his eyes. Jean wished for a moment that he were

really a child so that she could pick him up in her arms and carry him

away, follow the sun, and never be separated any more.

"That was some sleep!"

"You _almost_ snored."

"Impossible. Even my prosaic soul couldn't snore in the spring

woods--with a lady."

He reached both arms and drew Jean's head down.

"Such a nice lady! I love her."

"I don't believe it. Sleeping! While the lady has to stay awake and

drive away--malaria. Look, the sun has almost gone, it's only just

touching the very edge of the farthest strip."

Gregory heard none of this. He was watching the light in Jean's eyes.

They were so gray and deep, so like quiet pools, touched with sun, in

which one could go down and down and never reach the bottom.

"I don't believe it," Jean repeated; "I can't possibly, in view, or

rather sound of, the evidence."

"Then you shouldn't be here with me. To go off with a gentleman who

doesn't love you! You ought to be ashamed."

"I'm not." Jean laughed and laid her face against his. His lips

touched her chin. "Maybe I love him enough for both," she whispered.

"No--you--couldn't--love--him as much--as that, because he loves

you--just that--much himself." Little kisses on her neck and cheek

broke the words. And Jean felt part of the soft, black earth, the tang

of the rotting leaves and the spring budding.

They walked back through the woods, chilly now that the sun was gone.

It was dusk when they came to the road again. The lamp was lit and

there was a homey smell of fried potatoes and fresh cake. Mattie had

put on a clean dress and done her hair low on her neck. The break of

outsiders had penetrated her consciousness and she was looking forward

to the evening, Uncle John had already had his supper, and was reading

the Bible in his armchair by the stove. There was no sign of Mattie's

husband. But near the end of supper a wagon stopped.

"Good land, that'll be Jim, and we've et most everything clean."

"I'll scramble him some eggs, if it is. Don't you go fussin', ma. He

ought to let us know."

But the wagon went on and no one came.

Jean insisted on drying the dishes and after the requisite amount

of objection Mrs. Morrison gave her a towel. She often talked over

with Mattie this strange eagerness of city women to do dishes. Mattie

always concluded that it was only because they never did them any

other time. But Jean really wanted to do them. She liked the feel of

the low-raftered room, all skewed out of plumb with age, dim in the

corners, where the lamplight did not touch. Through the uncurtained

windows the fields stretched away under the cold night sky. They framed

the warm comfort within, gave it a permanence it did not really have.

With the filling of the dishpan Mrs. Morrison began a story of a family

feud that had gone on for years and was all about a chicken, in the

beginning. From time to time she stopped while she held long arguments

with Mattie on exact names and dates. Jean caught snatches of it

between her own thoughts.

At last the dishes came to an end, and Mrs. Morrison hung up the

checked apron.

"Now, if you folks likes music, we got some pretty records and Mat'll

be glad to work 'em fur you."

"You're coming, too?"

"I don't mind if I do, until it's time to set the bread. But I'm an

early bedder, like most country folks. Now, Mattie, she'd stay up

gassin' all night."

The girl frowned. "Country folks got such silly notions they fix to

live by. You got to go to bed at seven so you kin git up at five,

whether there's anything to git up fur or not."

"Honest, Mat, sometimes you make me think of old cousin Beggs that

hadn't all her senses. If country folks didn't git up till the time you

want 'em to, who'd feed the chickens?"

"Seems like most people just keep 'em so they can git up to feed 'em.

Not more'n a third of 'em lays, anyhow. What tunes do you like, Mrs.

Murray?"

"Won't the graphaphone wake the baby?" Jean made a last attempt to save

herself and Gregory.

"He always wakes up round this time anyhow and he likes it. When he's

old enough I'm goin' to git him music lessons."

"You have quite a little time to look around for a teacher! How old is

he?"

"Four months. But it'll take all that time to find one in this hole."

The first spark of mischief lit the girl's eyes. Mrs. Morrison laughed.

"Go along with you and put on 'I'm Waiting at the Gate.'"

She rolled down her sleeves, lowered the lamp and followed them.

She sat on the step that raised the "parlor" from the living-room

and leaned back against the door jamb, as if the Axminster rug and

plush rockers with which the delightful old room was desecrated, was

unfamiliar ground. Mattie put on the record and it began its wailing

call for some one to meet some one else at the old gate and not to

forget.

The woman in the door closed her eyes. Mattie sat beside the machine,

her cheek in her hand, staring at the carpet. They were lost in the

sentiment of words and music.

"Pa always liked that terrible," the woman murmured, as the plaint

ended in a mournful throb. "Mattie used to play it by the hour fur him."

For a moment something fleeted across her face and Jean saw it in

the face of the younger woman, too, hopeless longing, desire without

strength to demand.

Was that it, the bond that had held them, pa and ma, and Mattie?

Was that why the girl had married and stayed? Would the baby, too,

generation after generation, until the stock died out?

As if in answer, a small cry came from the room beyond.

"You kin put 'em on. It's easy. I got to go."

She went out. Jean followed. In the center of a fourpost bed, an atom

kicked its flannel-swathed legs and puckered its face for a real howl,

if its first warning did not bring immediate attention. But as Mattie

lifted it the puckers smoothed, the incipient howl turned into a gurgle.

"Some day I'm just goin' to let you howl and howl and howl until you

get so hungry, you old greedyguts! Don't you think I've got anything to

do but feed you? Hey, answer me!"

She kissed and tickled him and he writhed with delight.

"There, satisfied now, ain't ye?" She held him close and the baby's

doubled fists dug into her breast. The only sound was the faint hiss

of the baby's sucking. Suddenly the girl looked up.

"Got any babies?"

Jean shook her head.

"Been married long?"

Again Jean moved her head slowly in negation. Her eyes never turned

from the small black head against the girl's white breast.

"It's just as well not to begin right off. I was a fool, but nobody

told me. I'd like to have waited a while till I'd been somewhere and

seen somethin', besides trees and chickens."

The baby made his first stop, withdrew his milky lips and smiled at

Jean. She knelt and laid her chin in the warm crease of his neck.

"You ought to have one if you like 'em that much." The girl nodded

backwards to the room behind. "He kind of looks like he might like 'em,

but you never kin tell. Most men don't care a rap _after_ they're here."

Jean got up. The baby went half-heartedly back to finish. The girl

began rocking him and humming the refrain of the couple that never met

by the gate after all. The baby's eyes closed. Jean tiptoed from the

room.

Gregory lay on the couch reading. In the kitchen Mrs. Morrison was

setting the bread. Jean drew a glass of cold water from the pitcher

pump on the sink, drank it slowly and went upstairs without going again

into the parlor.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Although for the last year Dr. Pedloe had objected to many things that

Jean had done, he really was proud of the energy and magnetism that

made her district better known than all the other districts combined.

He had rather enjoyed reproving Jean, but had never considered removing

her. Now, when he understood that she had not only thought of leaving,

but was about to leave, he offered to raise her salary. Nothing else

occurred to him.

"It's nice of you, and I appreciate your appreciation of what I have

tried to do, but really, Dr. Pedloe, it is not a question of money, at

all. I have just outgrown it. I am not making any criticism, but I feel

stifled. I want a bigger coat. The old one is too tight."

To refer to the elaborate organization of which he had been the head

for fifteen years, as an old coat possible to outgrow in six, annoyed

and amused him.

"Really, Mrs. Herrick, I don't see where you are going to find a

fitting garment. Expanding--er--coats are rather tricky garments."

The remark pleased him and he smiled.

"I have found one." Jean outlined her idea of a Woman's Congress, in

time to grow to national proportions.

"It will take years, Mrs. Herrick."

"It may. And then, again, it may not."

"In the meantime it will be just as suffocating as anything else."

"That's where we don't agree. It's constructive. We shall be building

towards something, slowly, no doubt, but surely. We shall not

be--patching uselessly."

Dr. Pedloe's smile vanished. "I wish you every success, Mrs. Herrick.

No doubt we can still be mutually helpful. If there is anything I

can do, please believe that the patched coat is at your disposal. I

understand that you wish to sever your connection by the end of the

month?"

"I should like to very much. We are going to try and get into running

order as a definite organization before the summer vacation takes every

one out of town, and be ready to plunge in head first in the fall."

"I see."

"But of course, if you have no one in mind for my district, or would

like me to stay on a few weeks to break in my successor----"

"I don't believe, Mrs. Herrick, I need to trespass on your new interest

to that extent. I have in mind Miss Carlisle, of Upper West. She is

much more fitted by experience and temperament for your district than

for her own simple one. I have been wanting to put her in a larger

field for some time."

"Then perhaps----"

Dr. Pedloe nodded. "I don't mean to suggest--but if you care to assume

your new duties before the end of the month, I should not want you to

feel that we stand in your way. You are taking Miss Grimes with you?

Then Miss Carlisle might come down for a couple of days, shall we say

the beginning of the week, to get a general idea of your office system.

Would that be perfectly satisfactory?"

"Oh, quite. It's very kind of you to be so considerate."

Dr. Pedloe rose, his dignity saved. "Perhaps I shall call upon your

organization some day for a return favor."

Jean wanted to wink at him, but she held out her hand.

"We shall be more than glad."

They shook hands, and Dr. Pedloe turned to his desk as if, in the half

hour's talk, mammoth duties had accumulated. Jean let herself out.

Down on the sidewalk she stood still and laughed until she realized

that people were staring.

"He did it, got it in by the tail, but got it. _Fired_, by Gosh!"

She could scarcely keep from telling Ben as he took her up in the

elevator to her own office, or Miss Grimes, who was the only one in.

But the former would have been so puzzled and the latter so indignant,

that she refrained. Besides, only two people could get the full flavor,

Mary and Gregory. She was going to have tea with him at half past four,

and there was not a spare moment before that. Mary would have to wait.

In the privacy of her own office, Jean stood in the middle of the floor

and stretched her arms to the spring air pouring in at the open window.

"It's going to be another glorious summer. A perfectly ripping summer."

Then she turned to work and refused to think of anything else until the

clock struck four. On the first stroke she closed and locked the desk.

Usually Jean reached the tea-room first. She liked it so. She liked to

be there a few moments ahead, to listen to the hum of women's voices,

catch scraps of conversation from a world of other interests, and then,

to look up and see Gregory cutting through it straight to her. It set

her apart, made her a direct choice in a concrete way that never failed

to make her heart give an extra throb.

But to-day Gregory was already there. He was sitting with his elbow

on the table, his chin in his hand. With his free hand he traced idle

designs on the tablecloth. At the sight of Jean he rose and drew out

her chair, letting his hands rest for a moment on her shoulders, which

was the only caress the publicity allowed. But as he took his own place

again, Jean saw the worried look in his eyes. Gregory rarely came

troubled to tea, and when he did, it took only a few moments to drive

it away. Sometimes she liked him to be a little tired, for the joy of

dissipating it.

"Well, how did things go to-day?" It was their stock beginning, but

to-day there was a forced interest in the tone that struck through

Jean's gayety.

"Great! I've been fired."

"That's a good cause for gratitude." For a moment they smiled in

understanding of their own viewpoint. Then the tea and muffins came

and Jean began to describe Dr. Pedloe's disapproval of her and all her

works. Gregory listened and his eyes appreciated the points as Jean

made them. But he offered no comments of his own and suddenly Jean

wondered whether he was listening at all. Gregory never sat attending

in that absent way. Fear crept on Jean, but she pushed it aside. If it

were something serious he would tell her. But nothing very terrible

could have happened in the twenty-four hours since she had seen him.

His work was going well and he was pleased with the designs for the

contest. Still he sat there, crumbling the muffin which he made no

pretense of eating. Jean went on with the telling, but her own interest

lessened.

Across the table, Gregory believed he was listening with the outward

show of interest he always felt. But there was no real interest in

him. For Puck was sick. She had been ailing for several days, and this

morning the doctor had come, and after he had looked at Puck and talked

a little with Margaret, he had telephoned for a nurse. Gregory's nerves

were still taut with the anxiety of waiting for the doctor to come

from Puck and tell him what was the matter. Like all persons unused

to illness, he wanted the relief of a specific name. It localized the

danger and brought the enemy into the open. He had steeled himself to

anything, for Margaret's excited helplessness had ended in a burst of

hysteria and he knew he would have to face it alone. Then the door

of Puck's room had opened and the doctor beckoned to him. Puck's

fever-bright eyes looked at him without recognition, and Gregory knew

that if Puck died he would remember her always like that, so small in

her white bed, with no smile of welcome for him, and unconscious of

Lady Jane by her side.

"There is nothing to worry about, but I will be frank with you, there

is a lot to look out for. Your child is one of the finest samples of

modern, high-strung baby nerves that I have seen in a long while. That

fever doesn't amount to anything and she will be up in a few days. It

won't be necessary for me to come again, so I will tell you now, keep

her back. She is too old for her years already. She has inherited a

rather hysterical nervous tendency, but she's got a will of iron too.

She rarely cries, does she? No, I thought not. If she threw things

around and had what old-fashioned parents used to call 'a bad temper,'

she would let off the steam that way. But she doesn't. We grown-ups

forget all about our own childhood. There, I guess that's all. Keep her

back. Don't reason with her too much. She thinks too hard, anyhow. A

little of the plain old-style faith in what mother says or father says

is wonderfully restful, like believing in God when we grow up. See that

she has other children to play with, and keep an eye on her yourself.

We men so often think that children are--any woman's special province."

Gregory had sat on beside Puck's bed until the nurse came. And for the

first time since they had put Puck, a wailing mite, into his arms,

he had felt helpless, inadequate, lost in the problem of the small

person, so distinctly a bit of himself. And of Margaret....

He had come to meet Jean, full of the need to talk about this, to get

a little of her sanity. But now, sitting opposite her, he could not do

it. It belonged so completely to the world outside their world. How

could he tell any one, Jean least of all, this fear that Puck might

grow up like her mother? For the first time, tea with Jean was an

effort, held something of the same quality that the forced cheerfulness

of dinners with Margaret had. As he crumbled his muffin and listened,

Gregory tried to be just. It was not fair to Jean to drag his worries

into their hour, but the effort to keep them out tangled his already

too complex world almost to breaking.

Jean watched the nervous working of his fingers and her fear grew.

Something must be very wrong. Her longing to comfort him struggled with

her pride against asking a confidence he might not wish to give. At

last pride went to defeat.

Jean covered his hand with hers.

"What is it, Gregory? You look worried to death."

Her touch assured him sympathy. He would tell her. What? Ask her to

understand all that Puck meant to him? Show her a part of his life that

she did not touch at all?

"Out with it." The forced gayety of the tone rasped. He wanted to

withdraw his hand. Where was the boasted intuition of feminine love?

Why didn't Jean know what he wanted to tell her? The firm fingers

pressed his, as if to give him courage. He looked up. Jean was waiting

with a calm strength in her eyes. What on earth did she think was the

matter? The situation became suddenly overtuned and ridiculous. Gregory

pushed back his chair and rose.

"Nothing, really. Have I been such an awful bore? I'm sorry, but I'm

terribly tired. I was up all night."

"Why?"

Jean's eyes, on a level with his own, demanded the truth. Gregory felt

trapped and angry.

"Oh, that damned contest. I've been working for the last two weeks on

the wrong tack." He held her coat and Jean turned to slip her arms into

the sleeves.

What a silly she had been! As if any man ever lost a night's sleep

and was the same the next day. After all, she was rather like Martha

sometimes. Jean smiled to herself.

As he turned up the collar of her coat, Gregory's fingers brushed her

cheek. She turned her head and kissed them swiftly.

"Well, rub it out and do it over again, because you know you're _going

to win_."

* * * * *

Gregory met the nurse in the hall. She carried Lady Jane in her arms

and smiled reassuringly.

"She is ever so much better. She had a fine sleep and woke with no

fever at all. She asked for you."

Puck was propped up with pillows, her eyes fastened on the door waiting

for Lady Jane. At the sight of Gregory she wriggled with delight.

"Well, Pucklets, all better?"

He sat down on the side of the bed and put an arm about her. Lady Jane

was forgotten. Puck reached up and stroked his cheek. It was an old

gesture of Margaret's, and brought back sharply the days of his brief

engagement when, sitting on the arm of Margaret's chair before the

library fire, with the slender grace of her pressed near, he had wanted

sometimes to crush her to him. But always she had seemed to sense the

ferocity of his mood and to stave it off by this gentle stroking of his

cheek, as she might have quieted her pet Angora. Gregory drew a little

beyond the reach of Puck's touch, and she nestled to him.

"Quite all well, Puckie, sure?"

Puck nodded. "I got all better when I went to sleep. I can get up

to-morrow, can't I, Miss Burns?"

"I don't know about that, but very soon, if you're a good girl and

don't talk to father too much."

"I won't." Puck's lips snapped as if she were never going to say

another word and the nurse went out laughing.

Gregory's hold tightened. He had always thought of Puck as another

self, very small and feminine, but still a great part of himself. Now

he knew that she was Margaret, too. And something else, beyond them

both. She was herself. She was a part of his experience, his reaction,

his fate. And yet her own experience, her own reaction, her fate could

never be his. Sitting with his arms tight about Puck, who soon fell

asleep, Gregory felt the terrible isolation of every living soul. No

one could ever reach another. He and Margaret were worlds apart. They

had never really touched at all. They had created Puck and Puck was

distinctly herself and apart. She would grow up and marry and have

children of her own....

Gregory put Puck back on the pillow and tiptoed from the room. Annie

was just bringing in the soup. In a few moments he and Margaret were

eating, and Margaret was retailing the misfortunes of the Burns family,

which had forced pretty Gertrude Burns to take up nursing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

At the end of the week Miss Burns left and in a few days Puck was

running about the house as usual. The only reminder that something

had changed somewhere in his world, were the advertisements of summer

resorts that littered Margaret's desk. The doctor had ordered "bracing

air, salt water and everything as unlike the city as possible." So

Gregory rented their own bungalow on Long Island to Benson for the

summer and tried to be patient with Margaret in her search. She finally

decided on a small boarding house in Maine, as far from civilization as

she could get, where there were other children for Puck to play with.

Margaret did not expect to enjoy the summer and measured her devotion

to Puck by the degree of her own discomfort.

Puck was not told until it was necessary to pack Lady Jane's things.

Then she was hysterical with excitement at the idea of going "a long,

long way on a boat." She invested Maine with all the magic details of

Gregory's bed-time stories. But when she found that he was not coming

with them, her joy died as suddenly as if it had been turned off with a

spigot.

"I don't want to go 'a long, long way on a boat' without my daddy." She

squared her shoulders and looked quietly at Margaret.

"But it's too far, dear. Daddy has to stay and work for us and we

mustn't tease him."

"I don't want my daddy to stay and work for us."

"But, Puck, it's a lovely place, with the great big green sea rolling

in almost to the house and little boats to go out in when it's calm."

"I don't want the sea to roll into the house, and who'll take me out in

the little boats?"

"The man will. He takes all the children every day."

"I don't think I want to go."

Margaret did not argue the matter further and went on packing the

trunks. Puck, however, stopped all preparations and sat with her brows

drawn in a frown exactly like Gregory's, hugging Lady Jane.

She did not run to meet Gregory that night and through dinner scarcely

spoke. Gregory watched her anxiously. At half past eight, without being

told, she went to get ready for bed.

"What's the matter with Puck?"

"I had to tell her this afternoon that you can't come with us."

Gregory put down the evening paper. "I suppose you exaggerated it's

being a long way, and she thinks she's going to the ends of the earth?"

"You needn't be rude. Please remember that it will be no particular

pleasure taking a nervous child on a sea trip alone."

"Damn!"

Margaret bit her lip. "If you could control your temper until we're out

of the way, it would help. I have had about all I can stand with her

and finding the place and settling the details."

Gregory was ashamed of his outburst. After all, Margaret could not help

being herself and he was sorry for her in an impersonal way.

"But I wish you wouldn't talk so much about her nerves. A baby scarcely

six. You'll make her so."

"I don't think you can tell me anything about Puck that I don't know.

Remember, I am with her all day, not just at night in time to tell her

stories. If any one excites and makes her nervous, it's you. Remember,

you never hear the versions of those stories she gives Lady Jane."

Margaret had used this shaft so often that the barb had dulled. "Well,

she's not going to have any of them for some time."

Puck's bare feet pattered along the hall and she entered ready for her

bed in her little white pajamas, that buttoned up the back out of her

reach. Gregory buttoned them and swung her into his lap.

"Where's Lady Jane? Is she too tired for a story to-night?"

"Lady Jane don't feel like stories to-night."

"Dear me! She's not sick, is she?"

"No, she's not sick, really. But she isn't very happy."

Across Puck's head, Margaret made warning signs to Gregory to drop the

subject, but his hold only tightened and he rubbed his chin on Puck's

soft hair.

"That's too bad, Puckie. What's she unhappy about?"

Puck herself had been warned not to mention Maine but nothing had been

said about Lady Jane. And Lady Jane was desperately unhappy, almost as

miserable as Puck herself.

"I--don't--think--she wants to go to--Maine."

"Oh, she'll like it after she gets there. Especially if you take

Priscilla and Dorothy along too."

"They don't want to go either."

"Well, I'll tell you what we'll do. You go along with mother on Monday,

and then, if you want Lady Jane or Priscilla, I'll bring them when I

come."

Puck jerked upright in his arms. They looked at each other. Slowly Puck

smiled. Gregory smiled back. With his hands on the slight shoulders, he

looked into her eyes.

"I can't come up with you and mother, Pucklets, but I'll come later,

before the summer is over and stay a whole month."

There was a pause during which Margaret wondered why men were so

annoying. Without a doubt, Gregory had intended to come up, but it was

just like him to give no one the satisfaction of knowing it.

"I think, daddy, I'll take Lady Jane and Priscilla. You couldn't take

care of them very well, could you?"

"I think that would be better. I don't quite understand about their

food," he added, remembering suddenly that Lady Jane and Priscilla were

in the stage of being babies for the last two weeks.

Puck cuddled into his arms with a deep sigh of relief. Her tottering

world was stable again.

"Tell me about Pergameleon," she demanded, and Gregory obeyed with the

garbled version that passed for the story between them.

A week later he saw them off on the boat and came back to Gramercy Park

to have dinner with Jean.

It was going to be a happy summer.