. . . Well,
go on, go on. How did it end, the talk with Father, I mean?"

"I told him," he continued, "that I meant to write and to earn my living
by writing. I meant to try magazine work--stories, you know--and, soon,
a novel. He asked if earning enough to support a wife on would not be
a long job at that time. I said I was afraid it might, but that that
seemed to me my particular game, nevertheless."

She interrupted again. "Did it occur to you to question whether or not
that determination of yours was quite fair to me?" she asked.

"Why--why, yes, it did. And I don't know that it IS exactly fair to you.
I--"

"Never mind. Go on. Tell me the rest. How did it end?"

"Well, it ended in a sort of flare-up. Mr. Fosdick was just a little bit
sarcastic, and I expressed my feelings rather freely--too freely, I'm
afraid."

"Never mind. I want to know what you said."

"To be absolutely truthful, then, this is what I said: I said that I
appreciated his kindness and was grateful for the offer. But my mind was
made up. I would not live upon his charity and draw a large salary for
doing nothing except be a little, damned tame house-poet led around in
leash and exhibited at his wife's club meetings. . . . That was about
all, I think. We shook hands at the end. He didn't seem to like me any
the less for . . . Why, Madeline, have I offended you? My language was
pretty strong, I know, but--"

She had bowed her head upon her arms amid the sofa cushions and was
crying. He sprang to his feet and bent over her.

"Why, Madeline," he said again, "I beg your pardon. I'm sorry--"

"Oh, it isn't that," she sobbed. "It isn't that. I don't care what you
said."

"What is it, then?"

She raised her head and looked at him.

"It is you," she cried. "It is myself. It is everything. It is all
wrong. I--I was so happy and--and now I am miserable. Oh--oh, I wish I
were dead!"

She threw herself upon the cushions again and wept hysterically. He
stood above her, stroking her hair, trying to soothe her, to comfort
her, and all the time he felt like a brute, a heartless beast. At last
she ceased crying, sat up and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I will not be silly any longer. I won't be! I
WON'T! . . . Now tell me: Why have you changed so?"

He looked down at her and shook his head. He was conscience-stricken and
fully as miserable as she professed to be.

"I don't know," he said. "I am older and--and-