?"

"It's like a dream, Jerry. I'm afraid I'll wake up."

"We can give some real parties in this place."

"We must have all the studio crowd in for a house-warming," she
answered.

Bobs and the Chatfields came in, during the evening, to wish them
welcome. Bobs slipped off upstairs to see baby, and Jane followed.

"I see your fine hand in many things provided for our comfort and
pleasure, dear."

"Oh, I just looked after things a bit. Doesn't he look like a kitten,
all relaxed and soft?"

"He is a wonderful possession," Jane said, with so much feeling that
Bobs dared not look at her.

Life in the new home fell into its wonted routine. They became
accustomed to the new luxuries with the usual ease and celerity. The
baby's regime was, for the present, the nurse's affair, except for
certain essential contributions on Jane's part. Jerry's sittings began,
so Jane took up the old habit of running away to the white room at Mrs.
Biggs's, as soon as the house and her son were started on the day. She
had three full hours, all her own, and she gloried in them.

She attacked the book with fervour. But as she read over the completed
chapters, she found no trace of her present self. It seemed dry, too
analytical, too intellectualized.

"What has happened to me?" she asked herself. "Something has opened up
in me like sluice gates. I feel that I want to deluge the whole world
with feeling, with happiness."

True to her instinct, she began to work over the whole book. For the
first time she wrote with abandon. The chapters came hot, fluid, swift.
She marvelled at her speed, and with difficulty she dragged herself out
of her work-trance to go back to her small son.

For two weeks she wrote at white heat; then a crisis arrived. She
realized that they could not afford to keep the trained nurse any
longer, and her departure meant the loss of Jane's freedom. She thought
about it a good deal, pondering a way to work it out. Anna proved a
treasure; she marketed, cooked, served; acted as major-domo over the
whole establishment, but she could not add baby to her duties. She did
not want to confess about her work to Jerry yet, and at the same time
she knew she simply could not be interrupted now.

"Jerry, the nurse leaves to-morrow," she said to him.

"Too bad we can't afford to keep her on."

"I was wondering. Your model comes about eleven, doesn't she?"

"Usually."

"You don't often go out before that, do you?"

"No."