haps she was not clever or
strong enough to know how to make her own life and Paul's anything but a
dreary struggle to get ahead of other people, but somehow--somehow,
Ariadne must have a better chance.

Something of all this came to her mind in the reaction from her frolic,
as she established the child in her high-chair and sat down to her own
cold breakfast; but she soon fell, instead, to pondering the question of
Mary in the kitchen. She had not now that terror of a violent scene
which had embittered the first year of her housekeeping, but she felt a
qualm of revulsion from the dirty negress who, as she entered the
kitchen, turned to face her with insolent eyes. It seemed a plague-spot
in her life that in the center of her home, otherwise so carefully
guarded, there should be this presence, come from she shuddered to think
what evil haunts of that part of Endbury known as the "Black Hole." She
thought, as so many women have thought, that there must be something
wrong in a system that made her husband spend all his strength laboring
to make money so much of which was paid, in one form or another, to this
black incubus. She thought, as so many other women have thought, that
there must be something wrong with a system of life that meant that,
with rare exceptions, such help was all that could be coaxed into doing
housework; but Lydia, unlike the other women she knew, did not--could
not--stop at the realization that something was wrong. Some irresistible
impulse moved her to try at least to set it right.

On this occasion, however, as she faced the concrete result of the
system, she was too languid, and felt too acutely the need for sparing
her strength, to do more than tell her cook briefly that if she did not
stop drinking she would be dismissed. Mary made no reply, looking down
at her torn apron, her face heavy and sullen. She prepared some sort of
luncheon, however, and by night had recovered enough so that with
Lydia's help the dinner was eatable.

Paul was late to dinner, and when he sat down heavily at the table
Lydia's heart failed her at the sight of his face, fairly haggard with
fatigue. She kept Ariadne quiet, the child having already learned that
when Daddy came home from the city there must be no more noisy play; and
she served Paul with a quickness that outstripped words. She longed
unspeakably to put on one side forever all her vexing questions and
simply to cherish and care for her husband physically. H