us."

"You mean I don't give you what you want?" he inquired.

"No."

"You want to end it?"

"No."

"What then?"

"If we have the intelligence to realize the situation, we must be able
to meet it."

"But how?"

"I don't know yet. We must both consider it deeply."

With this, she closed the interview, and he felt as baffled as when he
began it.

He went on with his study of her. She filled his mind. In the nursery
she was a happy, twittering, foolish mother, adoring her baby. With him
she was now a gay, bantering companion, now a dweller in Mars, with no
apparent connection with the earth. With Christiansen she was a sexless
challenge, calling to his mind with hers. Bobs transformed her into an
affectionate big sister, interested in the doings of all the studio
friends. He no sooner collected the data of one role, than she assumed
another. Yet with all those ties, she kept an independent aloofness.
Jerry felt that, any day, she might tie baby to her back and go forth,
leaving them all, without a look behind. He decided that this was the
secret of her fascination for them.

The more he thought about her, the more he wanted to know about those
unaccountable mornings, what she did, where she spent her freedom. He
decided to strike, in his position as assistant nurse, to see if that
thwarted her sufficiently to bring a protest. He, therefore, announced
that business would take him out of the studio in the early mornings for
a week.

"Too bad to spoil your outings," he added.

"Oh, it won't. I'll arrange somehow."

"Those sacred mornings of yours cannot be interfered with, can they?"

"No."

"Why don't you invite me to walk with you some morning?"

"It's more important that you should look after baby."

"Thanks."

"After all, you've never shown any uncontrollable desire to walk with
me. Before baby came you always walked alone."

He carried out his plan, with much discomfort to himself, for he hated
early rising, but the ruse gained him nothing. Mrs. Biggs arrived and
took his place. Not so much as a day was lost to Jane. By the end of the
week, his irritation and his curiosity had grown to such a size that he
was persuading himself that he owed it to himself to know where she
went. After all she was his wife; he had a right to know what she was
doing. So for two mornings when Jane went to the tenement room to write,
Jerry sauntered along far enough behind her to escape detection. Both
days he sa