ind. I've got a
beast of a headache. Martin is going to take 'The Beaten Road' off at
the end of the week, you know, and he doesn't think now that he will
produce the other. There wasn't a good word for me from the critics, and
yet, damn them, I know that the play is the best one that's ever come
out of America. But it's real--that's why they fell foul of it--it isn't
stuffed with sugar plums."

"Why, what in the world possessed them?" she returned indignantly. "It
is a beautiful play."

She saw him flinch at the word, and the sombre irritation which his
outburst had relieved for a minute, settled again on his features. Her
praise, she understood, only exasperated him, though she did not realize
that it was the lack of discrimination in it which aroused his
irritation. At the moment, intelligent appreciation of his work would
have been bread and meat to him, but her pitiful attempts at flattery
were like bungling touches on raw flesh. Had he written the veriest rags
of sentimental rubbish, he knew she would as passionately have defended
their "beauty."

"I'll get dressed quickly and look after some business," he said, "and
we'll go home to-night."

Her eyes shone, and she began to eat her eggs with a resolution born of
the consoling memory of Dinwiddie. If only they could be at home again
with the children, she felt that all this trouble and misunderstanding
would vanish. With a strange confusion of ideas, it seemed to her that
Oliver's suffering had been in some mysterious way produced by New York,
and that it existed merely within the circumscribed limits of this
dreadful city.

"Oh, Oliver, that will be lovely!" she exclaimed, and tried to subdue
the note of joy in her voice.

"I shan't be able to get back to lunch, I'm afraid. What will you do
about it?"

"Don't bother about me, dearest. I'll dress and take a little walk just
to see what Fifth Avenue is like. I can't get lost if I go perfectly
straight up the street, can I?"

"Fifth Avenue is only a block away. You can't miss it. Now I'll hurry
and be off."

She knew that he was anxious to be alone, and so firmly was she
convinced that this mood of detachment would leave him as soon as he was
in the midst of his family again, that she was able to smile tolerantly
when he kissed her hastily, and seizing his hat, rushed from the room.
For a time after he had gone she amused herself putting his things in
order and packing the little tin trunk he had brough