thout money, if there were no children. And now, somehow, the
impossible had happened, in this unfamiliar city, far away from friends
and female counsellors.

She wandered out into the street in a dull despair, and after a time got
on top of an omnibus with a vague idea of going off somewhere, never to
return, and sat there in the drizzle until she reached the end of the
route, which happened to be the Luxembourg. She recognized the place
because she had visited the gallery with her husband and also dined at
Foyot's and gone to the Odeon on one of their expansive occasions. She
walked about aimlessly for a while, feeling that she must get farther
away somehow, then wandered into the garden and sat down near one of the
fountains among the nurses. The sun had come out from the watery sky,
and it was amusing to watch the funny French children and the chattering
nurses in their absurd headdresses. The graceful lines of the old Palais
made an elegant frame for the garden, the fountains, and the trees.
Milly couldn't brood long, but after a time the awful fact would intrude
and pull her up with a start. What should she do? There was no room in
their life for a child, especially just now. She could never tell Jack.
What useless things women were anyway! She didn't wonder that men
treated them badly, as they did sometimes, she had heard.

A familiar small figure came towards her. It was Elsie Reddon, the
two-year-old girl she had played with on the steamer.

"Where's Mama, Elsie?" Milly asked. The child pointed off to a corner of
the garden near by, and Milly followed her small guide to the bench
where Marion Reddon was seated. The other child hadn't yet come, but
evidently was not far off. Milly felt strangely glad to see the little
woman again, and before long confided in her her own trouble.

"That's good!" Marion Reddon said quickly and with evident sincerity.

"You think so!" Milly cried pettishly. "Well, I don't."

"It simplifies everything so."

"Simplifies?"

"Of course. When you're having children, there are some things you can't
do--just a few you can--and so you do what you can and don't worry about
the rest."

"It spoils your freedom."

The pale-faced little woman laughed.

"Freedom? That's book-talk. Most people do so much more when they aren't
free than when they are. Sam says it's the same with his work. When he's
free, he does nothing at all because there's so much time and so many
things he'd like