e and cool. He
carried Teddy off for whole afternoons, leaving Martie to doze, read,
and rest; and learning that she still had a bank account of something
more than three hundred dollars--left from poker games and from her old
bank account--she engaged a stupid, good-natured coloured girl to do
the heavy work. Isabeau Eato was willing and strong, and for three
dollars a week she did an unbelievable amount of drudgery. Martie felt
herself fortunate, and listened to the crash of dishes, the running of
water, and the swish of Isabeau's broom with absolute satisfaction.

One broiling afternoon she was trying to read in the darkened dining
room. Heat was beating against the prostrate city in metallic waves,
but since noon there had been occasional distant flashes toward the
west, and faint rumblings that predicted the coming storm. In an hour
or two the streets would be awash, and white hats and flimsy gowns
flying toward shelter; meanwhile, there was only endurance. She could
only breathe the motionless leaden air, smell the dry, stale odours of
the house, and listen to the thundering drays and cars in the streets.

Wallace had gone to Yonkers to see a moving picture manager; Isabeau
had taken Teddy with her on a trip to the Park. Sitting back in a deep
chair, with her back to the dazzling light of the window, Martie closed
her book, shut her eyes, and fell into a reverie. Expense, pain,
weakness, helplessness; she dreaded them all. She dreaded the doctor,
the hospital, the brisk, indifferent nurses; she hated above all the
puzzled realization that all this cost to her was so wasted; Wallace
was not sorry for the child's coming, nor was she; that was all. No one
was glad. No one praised her for the slow loss of days and nights, for
dependence, pain, and care. Her children might live to comfort her;
they might not. She had been no particular comfort to her own
father--her own mother--

Tears slipped through her closed lids, and for a moment her lips
quivered. She struggled half-angrily for self-control, and opened her
book.

"Martie?" said a voice from the doorway. She looked up to see John
Dryden standing there.

The sight of the familiar crooked smile, and the half-daring,
half-bashful eyes, stirred her heart with keen longing; she needed
friendship, sympathy, understanding so desperately! She clung eagerly
to his hands.

He sat down beside her, and rumpled his hair in furious embarrassment
and excitement, studying