for
this talk with you--"

"Thank the Lord!" he ejaculated. "I hope it'll be another two before you
treat me to another evening like this. Oh, pshaw, Lydia! You're morbid,
moping around the house too much--and your condition and all. Wait till
you've got another baby to play with--I don't remember you had any
doubts of anything the first six months of Ariadne's life. You ought to
have a baby a year to keep you out of mischief! Just you wait till you
can entertain and live like folks again. In the meantime you hustle
around and keep busy and you won't be so bothered with thinking and
worrying."

Unknowingly, they had drawn again near to the heart of their
discussion. Unknowingly Lydia stood before the answer from her husband,
the final statement that she wished to hear.

"But to hustle and keep busy--that's good only so long as you keep at
it. The minute you stop--"

Paul's answer was an epoch in her thought.

"_Don't stop!_" he cried, surprised at her overlooking so obvious a
solution.

At this bullet-like retort, Lydia shivered as though she had been
struck. She turned away with a blind impulse for flight. Her gesture
brought her husband flying to her. He took her forcibly in his arms.
"What the devil--what is the matter _now_?" he asked, praying for
patience. She hung unresponsive in his grasp. "What's the matter?" he
repeated.

"You've just told me a horrible thing," she whispered; "that life is so
dreadful that the only way we can get through it at all is by never
looking at--"

Paul actually shook her in his exasperation. "Gee whiz, Lydia! you're
enough to drive a man to drink! I never told you any such melodramatic
nonsense. I told you straight horse sense, which is that if you took
more interest in your work, in the work that every woman of your class
and position has to do, you'd have less time to think foolishness--and
your husband would have an easier life."

Her trembling lips opened to speak again, but he closed them with a firm
hand. "And now, as your natural guardian, I'm not going to let you say
another word about it. You dear little silly! However did you get us so
wound up! Blessed if I have any idea what it's all been about!"

He was determined to end the discussion. He was relieved beyond
expression that he had been able to get through it without saying
anything unkind to his wife. He never meant to do that. He now went on,
shaking a finger at her:

"You listen to me, Lydia-Emery-that-