d sauntered off. As he came to the tea table Bobs remarked:

"I see dear Althy is with us. Some nerve--what?"

"Oh, no--a forgiving nature. You never did her justice."

"Go bring her over here. I owe her one or two."

"No, thanks. I don't want to turn Jane's party into a battlefield."

"Never fear. Althy is for trench warfare, she never fights in the open."

"Admire her, don't you, Bobs?"

"Vawstly!"

He moved on to another group, chatting for a few seconds. Then he joined
Jane, the poet, and Christiansen, who were in earnest discussion. Jane
was speaking.

"I think poetry is like religion, we must get it back into our lives, as
a working principle, before it can count with us again. Both have grown
so stiff with tradition and Sunday usage that we must work them into the
very stuff of our lives to make them real."

"Yes, that is just the case, Mrs. Paxton," the poet agreed. "There is
an outcry against the modern, radical poet, but it is because the dear
Philistine forgets that Shelley's message and work were as advanced in
his time as ours are to-day."

"You will find Mrs. Paxton an omniverous reader of poetry," said
Christiansen, "a reader with the appreciation of a poet."

Jerry moved on, irritated in some subtle way at what he named
Christiansen's showman manner of exhibiting Jane's good taste. Couldn't
the Englishman find out that she had some ideas without Christiansen's
help? He, her own husband, had never heard her speak of poetry. How did
Christiansen know so much of her interests?

The more he thought of it, the more it annoyed him. Christiansen's
manner with Jane implied a life-long intimacy. What, in point of fact,
did he, Jerry, know about Jane? He had never asked any questions about
her people or her past, and she had vouchsafed no information. How did
he know when or how she had met this man, what he had been to her? In
the haste of their mad marriage, it had not mattered about her past. He
intended that she should have only a future with him. He smiled grimly
at that. It looked now, as if he might have only a future with Jane!

But after a year and a half of marriage, what did he know about her?
About her thoughts, her interests, even her habits? Where did she go on
these daily, three-hour absences. Did she meet Christiansen then? He
thrust the idea out of his mind to find it tapping for admission again.
What kind of egotist and fool had he been, not to learn to know this
woman with whom h