ard as years.

She had given up her own talent; that it was now a crippled thing
within her was because she had renounced it, long before, for Eric's
life. But she would not easily sacrifice Eric's talent--if talent he
really had. She was prepared to fight for it, if need be. Yet, as she
watched Ted, reading with inscrutable face, her heart grew heavy within
her for dread of dissension, of struggle between them. That hot,
rebellious heart of hers had come at last to a sort of peace. The
affection between herself and Ted, in the past few quiet years, had
become for her, unconsciously, more and more of a haven. She had given
up much to the end that she and Ted might live together in harmony, and
she sickened now at the prospect of conflict. For at conflict, old
wounds would open, regrets long firmly suppressed would rush upon her,
a devastating flood. If she had to fight for Eric, she knew that she
would fight with the strength of old bitterness, bitterness that she
had striven to outlive. And she could not bear that this should
happen. She could not bear that her affection for Ted should be thus
jeopardized.

She remembered, as she sat there, the anger she had felt toward him
when he had condemned Alice North for her art--and, however innocently,
through Alice North, herself. She remembered how indignant she had
felt, how hurt and _divided_. And she remembered, too--thinking,
against her will, of Peter--how divided from Ted she had felt in later
years, in years not so long gone that she could recall them calmly.
She remembered how she had come, finally, to see Ted, and his part in
the destruction of her talent, all too clearly--and how her heart had
turned from him then to one whom she had no right to love. She had
driven her heart back to its appointed path; she had constrained it to
its duty--in so far as the heart can be constrained. She had even
achieved the supreme triumph of keeping alive for Ted, through
disillusion and passionate resentment, that very real affection with
which they had begun life together--but she trembled now at thought of
any further pressure being brought to bear upon it. It was as if she
held out her hands to her husband, crying: "Oh, let me love you! Do
nothing that shall make it impossible for me to love you!"

And yet--though conflict between them should destroy the love she had
so endeavored, in spite of everything, to feel--if Ted opposed Eric's
gift, there must be con