e is using them to fill up a lack in her
life," she said somberly; "that 'Gene no longer satisfied her, and that
she fed on the children because she was starving emotionally." Her
husband making no comment on this, she went on, "Neale, don't you think
that people are saying horrid, distressing things nowadays? About
marriage I mean, and all relations between men and women and between
parents and children?" Her heart was beating faster as she finished this
question. The subject was broached at last. Where would it lead them?
Where would it lead them? She shut her eyes at the thought.

"There's a good deal to be said about all that, that's pretty horrid and
perfectly true," remarked Neale casually. He tilted his hat further over
his eyes and leaned back, propping himself on one elbow.

"_Neale_!" she protested, shocked and repelled. She had hoped for
something very different from Neale. But she thought, in a momentary
exasperation with him, she might have known she would not get it. He
always took everything so abstractedly, so impersonally.

"I don't see any use in pretending there's not," he advanced with a
reasonable, considering air. "I don't see that intimate human
relationships are in any _more_ of a mess than other human relations.
International ones, for instance, just now. But they certainly are in
considerable of a mess, in a great many cases. It is evident that lots
of times they're managed all wrong."

Marise was so acutely disappointed that she felt a quavering ache in her
throat, and kept silence for a moment. So this was what she had looked
forward to, as a help. What was Neale there _for_, if not for her to
lean against, to protect her, to be a defending wall about her? He was
so strong and so clearheaded, he could be such a wall if he chose. How
stern and hard he was, the core of him!

"Neale," she said after a moment, "I wonder if you even _know_ what
things are being said about what we've always believed in . . . motherhood
for instance, and marriage?"

She had been unable to keep the quaver out of her voice, and at the
sound of it, he sat up instantly, astonished, solicitous, tender. "Why,
darling, what's the matter?" he said again, moving closer to her,
bending over her.

"How _can_ you think such things without their making you perfectly
miserable, without making you want to go straight and cut your throat?"
she cried out on his callousness.

He put his arm about her again, not absently this