ft of decent seclusion. About him,
now, all this undesirable metamorphosis was taking place.

"What is this room, my dear?" he inquired one morning as he spread
before him on the breakfast table blue prints, while Conscience was
pouring his coffee.

A shaft of early light tilting obliquely through the window fell on her
head, making a soft nimbus about her dark hair and bringing out the
exquisite color of her face. As Tollman looked up, raising the plans
with a finger indicating the spot in question, he recognized the
radiance of youth which could, under such a searching brilliance, remain
flawless. He felt in contrast old and sluggish of life current.

"That?" Conscience's brows were lifted in surprise. "Why, Eben, you've
been over those plans a half-dozen times. Surely you're familiar with
them. That's your bed-room."

"And this one?" He shifted his finger and his face clouded.

"That's mine."

"Separate apartments?" he inquired dryly, though he was, as she had
said, discovering no new cause of displeasure.

"Certainly."

"And three baths, and a garage and a car--and a terrace." He paused and
his face fell into a sullen and stubborn expression. After a moment he
added coldly, "That's all going to run into money."

Conscience set down the coffee cup and looked at him as she quietly
asked, "Is there any reason why it shouldn't? If you were poor, I would
share your poverty without complaint, but as you told me, unasked, we
are not poor. Economy carried beyond the point of virtue becomes
unlovely, I think."

Eben shifted his line of objection. Separate apartments hinted at that
modern trend which he believed sought to rob marriage of its sacred
intimacy.

"It is not only the expense," he announced stolidly. "Our people have
always held close to a certain conception of home and marriage. From the
days of the Mayflower these words have stood for a life fully shared.
People who play lightly with sacred things are the sponsors for the
other style of life: for houses where the husband and wife lead
separate existences and substitute small dogs for children."

He felt, as he concluded, the deep eyes of his wife fixed on him with an
expression which he could not quite fathom. Her lips were parted and the
freshness of her cheeks colored with a tinge of indignation.

"Have I ever seemed to prefer small dogs to children?" she asked him in
a still voice which bordered dangerously on anger. "You talk of a life
fully