weeks, in other places. Even his wife, he felt, would
relent at the sight of those figures, and would fly from the odour of
chemicals.

In fact, Mary did both, for she hated what she called "smells," and
a place strewn with hot irons and bottles of acids, which, as she
discovered, if disturbed burnt both dress and fingers. The sight also
of algebraic characters pursuing each other across quires of paper, like
the grotesque forces of some broken, impish army, filled her indolent
mind with a wondering admiration that was akin to fear. The man, she
reflected, who could force those cabalistic symbols to reveal anything
worth knowing must indeed be a genius, and one who deserved not to be
disturbed, even for a tea party.

Although she disapproved deeply of these renewed studies, such was
Mary's secret thought. Whether it would have sufficed alone to persuade
her to permit them is another matter, since her instinct, keen and
subtle as any of Morris's appliances, warned her that in them lay danger
to her home and happiness. But just then, as it happened, there were
other matters to occupy her mind. The baby became seriously ill over its
teething, and, other infantile complications following, for some weeks
it was doubtful whether she would survive.

Now Mary belonged to the class of woman which is generally known as
"motherly," and adored her offspring almost to excess. Consequently for
those weeks she found plenty to think about without troubling herself
over-much as to Morris and his experiments. For these same reasons,
perhaps, she scarcely noticed, seated as she was some distance away
at the further end of the long table, how very ethereal her husband's
appetite had become, or that, although he took wine as usual, it was
a mere pretence, since he never emptied his glass. The most loving of
women can scarcely be expected to consider a man's appetite when that of
a baby is in question, or, while the child wastes, to take note whether
or no its father is losing flesh. Lastly, as regards the hours at which
he came to bed, being herself a sound sleeper Mary had long since ceased
to interest herself about them, on the wise principle that so long as
she was not expected to sit up it was no affair of hers.

Thus it happened that Morris worked and meditated by day, and by
night--ah! who that has not tried to climb this difficult and endless
Jacob's ladder resting upon the earth and losing itself far, far away in
the blue of hea