consuming desire to write--to express myself.
I've always been rather silent--spoken words are so dangerous--but
written words, they're like winged birds that I nurse in my heart. When
I free them, they fly so far, so sure."

She stopped suddenly, aware that she had never spoken freely to him. His
attention was concentrated on her.

"My mother thought I had a gift when I was a girl; no one else knew of
my ambition. But when my father and mother were dead, I came to New
York, with almost no money and some funny, childish little stories, to
make a great name for myself."

She laughed at that, but it hurt Jerry. He did not smile at all.

"Almost the first editor who saw me told me I had no talent. He said I
must take a position that would support me; then I might write until I
learned how."

"So you took my job?"

"Yes; it was all I was fitted to do. It didn't matter what I did,
anyway. My real life was at night, when I wrote."

"What did you write, Jane?"

"Everything. Stories, essays, poems, tons of things."

"Where did you sell them?"

"I didn't sell them. Nobody ever saw them--not until Martin came."

"How did he know about them?"

"I told him, that first night I met him, at your pageant. He asked me
what I did and for some reason I told him. He asked me to see some of my
things and he liked them, rather, only he saw that I needed to
live--that I could not really write if I sat outside of life and
speculated about it. He literally opened up a new world to me. He took
me about, to the theatre, to hear music. He got me interested in the big
problems of now; he made me hungry for all the experiences I had been
starved for."

Jerry leaned out toward her.

"That's why you married me, Jane?"

She turned and looked at him, as if he were calling her out of a trance.

"Yes, that was why. I wanted a child," she said simply.

Jerry threw himself back on the couch and laughed at that--laughed
stridently.

"Do you mind, Jerry?" she asked in surprise.

"Mind? Oh, no! It's amusing to hear that you've been gobbled up, as a
possible experience, a stimulus, as it were, to a lady's literary
expression. I really owe you to Christiansen, don't I?"

"Does it seem a meaner motive than yours, in marrying me, Jerry?"

"Go on with the story," he said, ignoring her question.

"There isn't any more. Martin advised me, criticised my work, helped in
every way. This winter I have finished a book."

"Finished a book? Wh