Summer reached its crest and started down the hill toward autumn. Jerry went to town and spent a week trying to find a larger studio for them, which made some concession to Monsieur BÉbÉ. He suggested that Jane summon Bobs for company, in his absence, but she preferred to be alone. He left, weighed down by her advice not to be extravagant, not to take the first thing he looked at, to inspect her list of necessities before he decided on anything. She begged him to let her go with him, but he stoutly refused.

"Don't worry. I'll be as wise and wily as a real estate agent," he said as he left her.

She determined not to worry about it, but remembering his sudden enthusiasms during their spring house-hunting, she was not at rest in regard to him. She put it out of her mind as much as she could, and gave herself up to the complete enjoyment of being alone. Before her marriage, companionship had been her ideal luxury; now, solitude had taken its place.

She enjoyed the long, langourous days, abed until noon, in the garden or walking to the beach after luncheon, working at the book, at will, free to consider only herself and her pleasure. Every day she painted a new future for her baby, endowed him with new qualities. Sometimes he was a painter, sometimes a great writer, always he was of the elect.

Mrs. Biggs and Billy were distressingly attentive at first, thinking her lonely, but she managed to dispel that idea. They left her to her own devices during the day, but at night, when Billy was in bed, Mrs. Biggs would come to sit with Jane for a talk. She was a cheerful, philosophic sort of person. Jane liked to hear her ideas. Both she and Billy adored Jerry. They asked for daily news of him, and looked forward to his return.

"My! but wasn't you in luck to pick up a husband like Mr. Paxton?" she said, over and over.

"Yes, I was," Jane would admit.

"When I think of you, settin' alone, night after night in that white room, which never was cheerful to my thinkin', and now bein' the mistress of this grand, swell place; it's like one of them fairy-book stories."

"It is strange, isn't it, Mrs. Biggs?"

"There's nobody gladder fer you than me. Billy and me has had a grand time out here this summer."

"You've made it so comfortable for us, and we've enjoyed having you."

"Are you goin' to stay a long time in that hospital where you're going?"

"No, only a week or so."

"What is that thing you're going to have?"

"Twilight Sleep."

"I never heard tell of that before."

"No, it is rather new with us, Mrs. Biggs."

"The poor will never get it; it's just for the rich, I guess."

"On the contrary, the East Side Jewish Maternity Hospital experimented with it before any other hospital in New York."

"It's got to be free before we get it. The men wouldn't spend a cent to get it for us. They think sufferin' with children is a part of our job."

"We have to educate them out of that idea."

"I'd like to see you do it!"

"Begin with Billy, Mrs. Biggs. That's the way we must go about it—catch them young."

"Billy's got a real tender heart, mebbe he would understand, but Lord! the most on 'em!" She lifted her hands in a gesture of hopelessness.

The letters from Jerry were full of discouragement. The weather was hot, the city dirty, all the studios for rent had none of the things they required. Babies were not supposed to live in studios. He was tempted to try for a regular apartment for the family, and get a small workshop for himself. What would Jane think of that idea?

She wrote to him to use his own judgment in the matter. She thought it might prove a good plan to have the studio separate from the living quarters; certainly it would protect his work. She reminded him of the many failures in the spring, before they found what they wanted, so he must not be downhearted. Should she join him? She was perfectly able to come. He wired her:

"Stay where you are. Heat awful. On track of good thing. Jerry."

He was gone two weeks, then he appeared out of the woods one evening, unannounced. Jane was on the veranda and saw him coming.

"Jerry!" she called in welcome as she went to meet him.

"Hello, Jane. How are you?"

"Fine. My child, but you are hot and tired!"

"I are! Never spent such an infernal fortnight in my life."

"Poor boy! Go get into a cold bath and I'll tell Mrs. Biggs to hurry the dinner."

"Good work. I've got it, Jane," he called back, as he ran upstairs, three at a time.

When he came down, fresh and immaculate in white clothes, she realized that she was glad to see this handsome human, who in some strange way was joined to her.

"Have you been lonesome, Jane?"

"Not very. I rather enjoyed it. Everything, including Billy, revolved around me as the centre of the universe."

"I've had a report from Billy. He sat outside the bathroom door and shouted in the news. Funny kid."

"You've had a tiresome time, Jerry."

"Yes, but I've got the nicest place in town, Jane."

"You didn't take an Upper Fifth Avenue house, Jerry?"

"No. I took a stable down on Washington Mews, and it's a peach! Belongs to an interior decorator, who is going to California for a year, and it's got every living thing we need. Air, sunshine, plenty of rooms, servants' department, baths, big studio, everything."

"But my dear, doesn't it cost a fortune?"

"A little more than we planned, but if I speed up a bit, we can swing it all right."

"Jerry, Jerry, I knew I ought to go with you. How much is it to be?"

"Never mind that. I took it; I've signed the lease. All you've got to do is to enjoy it."

"Tell me about it."

He began to describe it, enthusiastic as a boy, dilating on this and that convenience or luxury. He described its comfort, and made her feel its charm.

"How you do love to have things right," she exclaimed.

"Of course, don't you?"

"Yes, but I don't actually have to have it to my heart's content, the way you do. When do we move into our Arabian Nights' dream?"

"While you are in the hospital, I'll move all our old sticks into the storeroom of the new place, and you can go right there, with the baby."

"It is good of you to do it all, and plan for my comfort this way, Jerry."

"You won't need to call me a slacker again, Jane, if I can help it. Do you think you will like the place?"

"I'm sure I shall, if it does not involve you too deeply, Jerry."

"Oh, no, we'll manage it easily."

All during dinner and most of the evening he talked about that house. Jane forced herself to equal his enthusiasm, to put out of her mind the thought that she and the child were adding another link to the ball and chain around Jerry's ankle. She feared that they had mortgaged his whole future, with an impossible rent, and yet she could not bear to seem to criticise his decision, nor dampen his ardour. She spent a good part of the night planning how she could come to the rescue with her own work. She must find a market as soon as possible.

The few weeks that were left to them of the summer were very pleasant. They had made some acquaintances in the colony, and joined in the more informal summer festivities. Jerry painted and loafed, seemingly quite contented. Jane marvelled at him sometimes, remembering the restless spring days in town.

The Brendons were off on a cruise. Althea was not mentioned between them. The Bryces motored out for lunch one fall day. They reported the Cricket immured in a summer camp for girls.

"Our one idea is to keep her off of us," said Wally.

"She's not a bad kid, if she'd had any training," Jerry remarked.

"Thanks, Jerry, we'll discuss that with you ten years from now," retorted Mrs. Wally.

Jerry blushed at that. He never thought of the baby as having anything to do with him—it was something belonging to Jane.

September grew cold and a trifle dreary.

"I'm glad we're going to town to-morrow. I hate the country when it's got the blues," said Jerry.

"I'm so reluctant to leave that I haven't thought about the weather."

"I suppose it isn't a very pleasant prospect for you," he said, uneasily, in the first reference he had made to the coming ordeal.

"I wasn't thinking of that, either. I was just remembering the summer in this dear place. I've never been so happy anywhere."

"Haven't you, Jane? I'm glad. Sometimes I feel as if I had gotten you into an awful scrape, in marrying me."

"You didn't get me in, I walked in."

"Eyes open, Jane? Did you know the kind of man I was?"

"Yes."

"You haven't regretted it?"

"No."

"Thank you."

"And you, Jerry?"

"I'm glad we did it, Jane."

"In spite of everything?"

"Yes. Now that I'm getting acquainted with you I realize what a crazy thing it was for me to suppose I knew you."

"That was partly my fault."

"I think we hit it off as well as most of them."

"I suppose so. Is there anything that you very much want which I fail to give you, Jerry?"

"I don't think of anything, Jane."

She knew the minute she had put the question, how futile it was. She had impulsively sought an answer on one plane, and he was speaking from another.

"I may die, Jerry. I would like to think I had made you comfortable."

"Jane, of course you're not going to die, and you've made me more than comfortable," he cried, with feeling.

The next day they left the house, in a burst of autumn warmth and glory. The asters and the fall leaves were flaunting their gay colours in the garden, and the vines on the walls, freshened by late rains, fluttered in the sun.

"Oh, Jerry, I wish it were spring!" cried Jane, in her one protest at the crisis she was facing.

He caught it in her tone, and felt the first conscious sympathy with her. He drew her hand through his arm, and led her to the gate to wait for the cab.

"A month from to-day, Jane, maybe we'll be glad it is winter."

"Yes, yes, of course, we must be," she said, getting herself in hand.

He looked at her tenderly, and Jane knew that, if she let go her control and sobbed out her terror to him, he would be her slave—her master. She made her choice then. She knew that she yearned for something to sustain her, which she had not. She even dreamed of what the loyal devotion of a man like Martin might mean to her in such a moment, but never once did she blame Jerry that he did not fill her needs.

"Maybe they aren't my needs; maybe they're the needs of my whole sex. How could he supply that order?" she mused, smilingly, as they rode off in the cab.