chattered eagerly over his rice and milk. Martie had a sandwich and
coffee, watching the shabby fingers that fumbled for five-cent tips,
the anxious eyes studying the bill-of-fare, the pale little
working-women who favoured a supper of butter cakes and lemon meringue
pie after the hard day.

She would go home to find the breakfast dishes waiting, the beds
unmade, the bathroom still steamed from Wallace's ablutions. Teddy
tucked away for the night, she would dream over a half-sensed book. Why
make the bed she was so soon to get into? Why wash the dishes now
rather than wait until she was in her comfortable wrapper? She went
back to her old habit of nibbling candy as she read.

The jolly little Bohemian suppers she had foreseen never became a
reality. Wallace hated cheap food; he was done with little restaurants,
he said. More than that, among his friends there did not seem to be any
of those simple, busy, gifted artists to whose acquaintance Martie had
looked forward. The more distinguished members of his company he hardly
knew; the others were semi-successful men like himself, women too poor
and too busy to waste time or money, or other women of a more or less
recognized looseness of morals. Martie detested them, their cologne,
their boasting, their insinuations as to the personal lives of every
actor or actress who might be mentioned. They had no reserves, no
respect for love or marriage or parenthood; they told stories entirely
beyond her understanding, and went about eating, drinking, dressing,
and dancing as if these things were all the business of life.

Wallace's favourite hospitality was extended to six silent,
overdressed, genial male friends, known as "the crowd." These he
frequently asked to dinner on Sunday nights, a hard game of poker
always following. Martie did not play, but she liked to watch her
husband's hands, and during this winter he attributed his phenomenal
good luck to her. He never lost, and he always parted generously with
such sums as he won. He loved his luck; the envious comments of the
other players delighted him; the good dinner, and the presence of his
beautiful wife always put him in his best mood. They called him "Three
deuces Wallie," and Martie's remark that his weight was also
"Two--two--two" passed for wit.

She took his winnings without shame. It was to take them, indeed, that
she endured the long, silent evening, with its incessant muttering and
shuffling and slapping of cards