his facile, fickle mind, behind the region
where self-excuse and somebody-else-always-to-blame reigned
supreme, a something--the something that had set the marks of
success so strongly upon his face--was whispering to him the
real reason for his now revolving a New York newspaper job. Real
reasons as distinguished from alleged reasons and imagined
reasons, from the reasons self-deception invents and vanity
gives out--real reasons are always interesting and worth noting.
What was Rod's? Not his love for her; nothing so superior, so
superhuman as that. No, it was weak and wobbly misgivings as to
his own ability to get on independently, the misgivings that
menace every man who has never worked for himself but has always
drawn pay--the misgivings that paralyze most men and keep them
wage or salary slaves all their lives. Rod was no better pleased
at this sly, unwelcome revelation of his real self to himself
than the next human being is in similar circumstances. The
whispering was hastily suppressed; love for her, desire that she
should be comfortable--those must be the real reasons. But he
must be careful lest she, the sensitive, should begin to brood
over a fear that she was already weakening him and would become
a drag upon him--the fear that, he knew, would take shape in his
own mind if things began to go badly. "You may be sure,
dearest," he said, "I'll do nothing that won't help me on." He
tapped his forehead with his finger. "This is a machine for
making plays. Everything that's put into it will be grist for it."

She was impressed but not convinced. He had made his point about
concentration too clear to her intelligence. She persisted:

"But you said if you took a place on a newspaper it would make
you fight less hard."

"I say a lot of things," he interrupted laughingly. "Don't be
frightened about me. What I'm most afraid of is that you'll
desert me. _That_ would be a real knock-out blow."

He said this smilingly; but she could not bear jokes on that one
subject.

"What do you mean, Rod?"

"Now, don't look so funereal, Susie. I simply meant that I hate
to think of your going on the stage--or at anything else. I want
you to help _me_. Selfish, isn't it? But, dear heart, if I could
feel that the plays were _ours_, that we were both concentrated
on the one career--darling. To love each other, to work
together--not separately but together--don't you understand?"

Her expression showed that