And nothing but happiness--happiness--happiness!" Martie said,
returning his handkerchief, and finishing the talk with one of her
eager kisses and with a child's long sigh.

"I was afraid you might be a little sorry about--November, Wallie,"
said she, after a while. "You are glad, a little; aren't you?"

"Sure!" he answered good-naturedly. "You can't help it!"

Martie looked at him strangely, as if she were puzzled or surprised.
Was it her fault? Were women to be blamed for bearing? But she rested
her case there, and presently Sally came in, wheeling the baby, and
there was a disorderly dinner of sausages and fresh bread and
strawberries, with everybody jumping up and sitting down incessantly.
Wallace was a great addition to the little group; they were all young
enough to like the pose of lovers, to flush and dimple over the new
possessives, over the odd readjustment of relationships. The four went
to see the moving pictures in the evening, and came home strewing
peanut-shells on the sidewalk, laughing and talking.

Two little clouds spoiled the long-awaited glory of going to New York
for Martie, when early in July she and Wallace really arranged to go.
One was the supper he gave a night or two before they left to various
young members of the Hawkes family, Reddy Johnson, and one or two other
men. Martie thought it was "silly" to order wine and to attempt a smart
affair in the dismal white dining room of the hotel; she resented the
opportunity Wallace gave her old friends to see him when he was not at
his best. She scolded him for incurring the unnecessary expense.

The second cloud lay in the fact that, without consulting her, he had
borrowed money from Rodney Parker. This stung Martie's pride bitterly.

"Wallace, WHY did you?" she asked with difficult self-control.

"Oh, well; it was only a hundred; and he's coining money," Wallace
answered easily. "I breezed into the Bank one day, and he was boasting
about his job, and his automobile. He took out his bank book and showed
me his balance. And all of a sudden it occurred to me I might make a
touch. I told him about Dawson." He looked at his wife's dark,
resentful face. "Don't you worry, Mart," he said. "YOU didn't borrow
it!"

Martie silently resuming her packing reflected upon the irony of life.
She was married, she was going to New York. What a triumphant
achievement of her dream of a year ago! And yet her heart was so heavy
that she might almost have envied t