unless she could bring
pressure to bear in some way, Eugene might readily be lost to her, and
then what a tragedy! She could not afford to have him go now. Why, in
six months----! She shivered at the thought of all the misery a
separation would entail. His position, their child, society, this
apartment. Dear God, it would drive her crazy if he were to desert her
now!

"Oh, Eugene," she said quite sadly and without any wrath in her voice at
this moment, for she was too torn, terrified and disheveled in spirit to
feel anything save a haunting sense of fear, "you don't know what a
terrible mistake you are making. I did do this thing on purpose, Eugene.
It is true. Long ago in Philadelphia with Mrs. Sanifore I went to a
physician to see if it were possible that I might have a child. You know
that I always thought that I couldn't. Well, he told me that I could. I
went because I thought that you needed something like that, Eugene, to
balance you. I knew you didn't want one. I thought you would be angry
when I told you. I didn't act on it for a long while. I didn't want one
myself. I hoped that it might be a little girl if ever there was one,
because I know that you like little girls. It seems silly now in the
face of what has happened tonight. I see what a mistake I have made. I
see what the mistake is, but I didn't mean it evilly, Eugene. I didn't.
I wanted to hold you, to bind you to me in some way, to help you. Do you
utterly blame me, Eugene? I'm your wife, you know."

He stirred irritably, and she paused, scarcely knowing how to go on. She
could see how terribly irritated he was, how sick at heart, and yet she
resented this attitude on his part. It was so hard to endure when all
along she had fancied that she had so many just claims on him, moral,
social, other claims, which he dare not ignore. Here she was now, sick,
weary, pleading with him for something that ought justly be hers--and
this coming child's!

"Oh, Eugene," she said quite sadly, and still without any wrath in her
voice, "please think before you make a mistake. You don't really love
this girl, you only think you do. You think she is beautiful and good
and sweet and you are going to tear everything up and leave me, but you
don't love her, and you are going to find it out. You don't love anyone,
Eugene. You can't. You are too selfish. If you had any real love in you,
some of it would have come out to me, for I have tried to be all that a
good wife should