illows of flesh, by the tattered petticoat which she was
always meaning and always forgetting to throw away. But he was aware
that she, so long attuned to him, caught all his repulsions. He
elaborately, heavily, jocularly tried to check them. He couldn't.

They had a tolerable Christmas. Kenneth Escott was there, admittedly
engaged to Verona. Mrs. Babbitt was tearful and called Kenneth her new
son. Babbitt was worried about Ted, because he had ceased complaining
of the State University and become suspiciously acquiescent. He wondered
what the boy was planning, and was too shy to ask. Himself, Babbitt
slipped away on Christmas afternoon to take his present, a silver
cigarette-box, to Tanis. When he returned Mrs. Babbitt asked, much too
innocently, "Did you go out for a little fresh air?"

"Yes, just lil drive," he mumbled.

After New Year's his wife proposed, "I heard from my sister to-day,
George. She isn't well. I think perhaps I ought to go stay with her for
a few weeks."

Now, Mrs. Babbitt was not accustomed to leave home during the winter
except on violently demanding occasions, and only the summer before, she
had been gone for weeks. Nor was Babbitt one of the detachable husbands
who take separations casually He liked to have her there; she looked
after his clothes; she knew how his steak ought to be cooked; and her
clucking made him feel secure. But he could not drum up even a dutiful
"Oh, she doesn't really need you, does she?" While he tried to look
regretful, while he felt that his wife was watching him, he was filled
with exultant visions of Tanis.

"Do you think I'd better go?" she said sharply.

"You've got to decide, honey; I can't."

She turned away, sighing, and his forehead was damp.

Till she went, four days later, she was curiously still, he cumbrously
affectionate. Her train left at noon. As he saw it grow small beyond the
train-shed he longed to hurry to Tanis.

"No, by golly, I won't do that!" he vowed. "I won't go near her for a
week!"

But he was at her flat at four.

III

He who had once controlled or seemed to control his life in a progress
unimpassioned but diligent and sane was for that fortnight borne on a
current of desire and very bad whisky and all the complications of
new acquaintances, those furious new intimates who demand so much more
attention than old friends. Each morning he gloomily recognized his
idiocies of the evening before. With his head throbbing, his tongue