e
window and reported, "It's turned awful chilly, and I think it's going
to rain. You don't want to go to the movies."

"Well--"

"I wish we had a fireplace! I wish it was raining like all get-out
to-night, and we were in a funny little old-fashioned cottage, and
the trees thrashing like everything outside, and a great big log fire
and--I'll tell you! Let's draw this couch up to the radiator, and
stretch our feet out, and pretend it's a wood-fire."

"Oh, I think that's pathetic! You big child!"

But they did draw up to the radiator, and propped their feet against
it--his clumsy black shoes, her patent-leather slippers. In the dimness
they talked of themselves; of how lonely she was, how bewildered he, and
how wonderful that they had found each other. As they fell silent the
room was stiller than a country lane. There was no sound from the street
save the whir of motor-tires, the rumble of a distant freight-train.
Self-contained was the room, warm, secure, insulated from the harassing
world.

He was absorbed by a rapture in which all fear and doubting were
smoothed away; and when he reached home, at dawn, the rapture had
mellowed to contentment serene and full of memories.

CHAPTER XXIX

I

THE assurance of Tanis Judique's friendship fortified Babbitt's
self-approval. At the Athletic Club he became experimental. Though
Vergil Gunch was silent, the others at the Roughnecks' Table came to
accept Babbitt as having, for no visible reason, "turned crank." They
argued windily with him, and he was cocky, and enjoyed the spectacle
of his interesting martyrdom. He even praised Seneca Doane. Professor
Pumphrey said that was carrying a joke too far; but Babbitt argued, "No!
Fact! I tell you he's got one of the keenest intellects in the country.
Why, Lord Wycombe said that--"

"Oh, who the hell is Lord Wycombe? What you always lugging him in for?
You been touting him for the last six weeks!" protested Orville Jones.

"George ordered him from Sears-Roebuck. You can get those English
high-muckamucks by mail for two bucks apiece," suggested Sidney
Finkelstein.

"That's all right now! Lord Wycombe, he's one of the biggest intellects
in English political life. As I was saying: Of course I'm conservative
myself, but I appreciate a guy like Senny Doane because--"

Vergil Gunch interrupted harshly, "I wonder if you are so conservative?
I find I can manage to run my own business without any skunks and reds
like Doane i