tte tight in her arms for a moment. Then Emily--thank God
for her!--was whispering fiercely in her ear:

"It's going to be all right, my dear! In a minute you're going to laugh
or cry! Laugh! It's better! Laugh! . . . That's right!"

Joe had his small car waiting outside; and waving good-bye to Emily, who
was taking Susette to the park, they sped away to the river and off into
the country. Soon they were talking excitedly.

It was after dark when they returned, and as had been already planned
they went to a cafe to dine, a gay place crowded full of people, music
throbbing, voices humming. Ethel wanted it like that. She wanted to be
lifted through. Joe alarmed her now. "Oh, don't--don't be so
considerate!" she wanted to exclaim to him. "What good does it do?" As
they smiled at each other, again and again she had to fight down an
impulse to cry--or shiver. She would bite her lips and turn away and
watch people, then turn quickly back and start talking rapidly.

At home, alone in Amy's room, she sat at the dressing table there, her
movements swift and feverish. She had often looked at herself of late
in her mirror in the nursery, but now she did not look into the glass.
Her hands were cold. In a very few minutes she called to Joe.

And a little later, on her old bed by the cradle in the nursery, she lay
violently trembling and staring intently up at the ceiling.

"What has happened?" she asked. "Whose fault was it? Mine?" With a
strange thrill of fear and repulsion, she clenched her teeth and held
herself until the fit of trembling passed. "Is this real, Ethel Knight?
Do you mean to say this is what love is--just this, just this?" She
shook her head and bit her lips. She asked, "Am I tied to this man for
life? I am not! I can't be! This isn't real--it isn't me!"

The night was a blur, like a bad dream. Once she remembered jumping up
and quickly locking the nursery door. But that was the beginning of a
return to her senses. "I needn't have done that," she thought. "It
wasn't fair. It was even rather insulting." This thought made her
quieter. And later, as the night wore on, a feeling of having been
unjust and foolish little by little emerged from the chaos and began to
steady her. But again the old dismay and dread and loathing would come
back with a rush. All at once her body from head to foot would grow
cold and rigid. And the power which a year ago with her sister she had
excitedly sensed as the driving force of