s
living indeed!

And Sally was expecting a baby! Martie laughed aloud from sheer
excitement and pleasure when the news came. It was almost like having
one herself; in one way even more satisfactory, because she was too
busy now to be interrupted. She spent the first money she had ever
earned in sending Sally a present for the baby; smiling again whenever
she pictured Sally was showing it to old friends in Monroe: "From
Martie; isn't it gorgeous?"

The weeks fled by. Wallace began to talk of moving to New York. It was
always their dream. Instinctively they wanted New York. Their talk of
it, their plans for it, were as enthusiastic as they were ignorant, if
Wallace could only get the chance to play on Broadway! That seemed to
both of them the goal of their ambition. Always hopeful of another
part, Martie began to read and study seriously. She had much spare
time, and she used it. From everybody and everything about her she
learned: a few German phrases from the rheumatic old man whose wife
kept the lodging house; Juliet's lines and the lines of Lady Macbeth
from Mabel's shabby books; and something of millinery from the little
Irishwoman who kept a shop on the corner, with "Elise" written across
its window. She learned all of Wallace's parts, and usually Mabel's as
well. Often she went to the piano in the musty parlour of the Geary
Street house and played "The Two Grenadiers" and "Absent." She brimmed
with energy; while Wallace or Mabel wrangled with the old costumier,
Martie was busily folding and smoothing the garments of jesters and
clowns and Dolly Vardens. She had a curious instinct for trade terms;
she could not buy a yard of veiling without an eager little talk with
the saleswoman; the chance phrase of a conductor or the woman in the
French laundry amused and interested her.

Away from all the repressing influences of her childhood, healthy and
happy, she met the claims of the new state with a splendid and
unthinking passion. To yield herself generously and supremely was the
only natural thing; she had no dread and no regret. From the old life
she brought to this hour only an instinctive reticence, so that Mabel
never had the long talks and the short talks she had anticipated with
the bride, and never dared say a word to Martie that might not have
been as safely said to Bernadette.

CHAPTER II

On A hot Sunday in early March Martie came back from church to find
Wallace gone. She had had no breakfast,