ng with what Floral Heights called "a sporty crowd," yet
neither of them acknowledged it. In matrimonial geography the distance
between the first mute recognition of a break and the admission thereof
is as great as the distance between the first naive faith and the first
doubting.

As he began to drift away he also began to see her as a human being, to
like and dislike her instead of accepting her as a comparatively movable
part of the furniture, and he compassionated that husband-and-wife
relation which, in twenty-five years of married life, had become a
separate and real entity. He recalled their high lights the summer
vacation in Virginia meadows under the blue wall of the mountains; their
motor tour through Ohio, and the exploration of Cleveland, Cincinnati,
and Columbus; the birth of Verona; their building of this new house,
planned to comfort them through a happy old age--chokingly they had said
that it might be the last home either of them would ever have. Yet his
most softening remembrance of these dear moments did not keep him from
barking at dinner, "Yep, going out f' few hours. Don't sit up for me."

He did not dare now to come home drunk, and though he rejoiced in his
return to high morality and spoke with gravity to Pete and Fulton Bemis
about their drinking, he prickled at Myra's unexpressed criticisms and
sulkily meditated that a "fellow couldn't ever learn to handle himself
if he was always bossed by a lot of women."

He no longer wondered if Tanis wasn't a bit worn and sentimental. In
contrast to the complacent Myra he saw her as swift and air-borne and
radiant, a fire-spirit tenderly stooping to the hearth, and however
pitifully he brooded on his wife, he longed to be with Tanis.

Then Mrs. Babbitt tore the decent cloak from her unhappiness and
the astounded male discovered that she was having a small determined
rebellion of her own.

III

They were beside the fireless fire-place, in the evening.

"Georgie," she said, "you haven't given me the list of your household
expenses while I was away."

"No, I--Haven't made it out yet." Very affably: "Gosh, we must try to
keep down expenses this year."

"That's so. I don't know where all the money goes to. I try to
economize, but it just seems to evaporate."

"I suppose I oughtn't to spend so much on cigars. Don't know but what
I'll cut down my smoking, maybe cut it out entirely. I was thinking of
a good way to do it, the other day: start on these