ound her composure she held her friend away from her, and looked
into her wet, tender eyes.

"You've said it all, Jane, like a prophet among women. I've learned it,
and my soul has dried up with bitterness, but you've kept sweet. The
world will listen to you--even men will listen," she said.

"Bobs, you dear old fraud, such loyalty and devotion and character as
yours do not grow out of a soul-soil of bitterness. You've helped me
with that book almost more than anybody else."

"How, Jane?"

"By being a good soldier!"

"Jane, I haven't cried in years and if you say another word like that,
I'm going to cry again."

Jerry came in and Bobs turned to him her tear-stained face.

"Have you read it?"

"Yes."

"You know what you've done, then?"

"What I've done?"

"Yes. You've married a woman and an artist, so much bigger than
yourself, that you've got to spend all your time growing big enough to
live with her!"

"Oh, Bobs, dear. You must forgive her, Jerry," Jane protested.

He shook his head slowly and said with a sort of solemnity:

"I know she speaks the truth!"

"Jerry, don't!" Jane exclaimed in distress.

"I've got to see this situation and you and me from all sides now, Jane.
It means too much to us all, for me to go on blundering with my eyes
shut."

"It must be my eyes that are shut, because it seems so simple to me; we
know the truth about each other now and I've come one step nearer to
you, by reason of my art."

"I hope so, Jane," he said earnestly.

CHAPTER XXIX

With the early spring Jane's book made its bow to the world. It had been
widely advertised by the publishers and had the advantage of a
conspicuous loneliness, since most books are brought out in the fall.
The author was sorry when her work was actually in its final form,
because she had so enjoyed the novelty of its various processes. The
galley proof and the page proof interested her intensely; the choice of
an illustrator seemed a momentous question of great import. The colour
of the binding, whether the lettering on it should be gold or black,
these details delighted her.

But the day came when a huge package arrived with her twelve copies
allotted by the contract. She sat on the floor and looked over every
copy, patting the covers, gloating over the beauty of the book. It was
an experience she was never to repeat in all the freshness of the first
time, and she drained it of sweetness.

She showed one to small Jerry