en in
her mind, just as she had a carefully conceived picture of herself that
she desired to leave upon the minds of others. If Mrs. Billman had put
her husband where he was in _Bunker's_ by force, as her rival hinted,
Mrs. Fredericks had also engineered "Stanny's" career with skilful
strategy.

* * * * *

Just at present she was involved in a project for a cooeperative
apartment building, which some people she knew were to put up in a
desirable neighborhood. She quite fired Milly with the desire to buy
space in the building.

"It's really the only way you can live in New York, if you haven't
money," Mrs. Fredericks said convincingly, displaying the plan of their
tiny apartment. "Of course we can't have children--there's no room for
them--but Stanny is so delicate I shouldn't feel it was right to have
them, anyway."

She spoke as if it were a sacrifice she had deliberately made for her
husband....

Milly talked enthusiastically to Jack that night of the new cooeperative
building and urged him to look into it. "I do so want a home of my own,"
she said with a touch of pathos. "Mrs. Fredericks still thinks there's
space to be had on one of the floors."

Bragdon looked into it, and reported that a good deal of space was to be
had. He was dubious of the wisdom of the scheme, even if by a
complicated arrangement of loans they could manage to buy a nominal
share. But Milly was persistent and proved to him with a sudden command
of figures that it would really reduce the cost of rent. She found out
more details, and she gained the support of Big Brother, who generously
offered to finance the undertaking for them. "It will make you feel
settled," he said, "to own your own home." Jack could not see that in
the end he should own much of anything unless by some surprising stroke
of luck a good many thousands of dollars fell into his lap. But he felt
that Milly should have a permanent place of her own, such as the slice
of the new ten-story building offered, and it would be better for the
child than to be wandering from rented apartment to apartment. So the
plans were drawn, the agreements practically made, when he had a final
misgiving.

The agreements lay on the table before him to be signed, and he had just
read them over carefully. They seemed to him like a chain that, once
signed, bound him to the city, to _Bunker's_ for an indefinite future.
His editorial chair had been specially galling