It seemed to Jane that this frank, entirely truthful explanation settled the matter of the tenement room once for all. But alas! Jerry did not look at events with the simple directness which characterized Jane. He believed that she spoke the truth, as far as she knew it. But it was outside the laws of human possibilities to Jerry that a man and woman could have such obviously intimate relationship without sex attraction as its cause and excuse. The whole thing smouldered in his mind.

He began to wonder whether Jane had felt jealousy when he had spent so much of his time with Althea Morton, before the baby came. He could not recall the least sign she had ever made of distress or protest. He determined to find out if she could be made jealous. It was his only weapon, so far as he could see. After much consideration, he asked Althea to sit for him, as model for a picture. She accepted with avidity, and the time was set in the afternoons, when Jane was about. Jerry saw to that.

"I've just got an order for a picture from the New Age Club," he remarked at luncheon, breaking a long silence.

"Oh, Jerry, now nice; I'm delighted."

"It's to go over the fireplace in the living-room."

"Good. I'm so glad; it's a big step forward, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's a good thing."

"Have you decided on the subject?"

"Yes—sort of enchanted Maeterlinck forest with Melisande coming through the trees."

"Charming. Did you choose it?"

"No, the committee decided on it. I shall begin at once."

"Who will you have for Melisande?"

"Althea Morton."

"Of course; she will be fine. But will she pose?"

"She will," he replied with what he hoped was a mysterious smile. It was a trifle annoying to have her so pleased with the arrangement. "I'd be obliged if you would occasionally show yourself while she is here," he added.

"I will, if I'm at home. There's no disguising the fact, however, Jerry, that my absence causes no acute pain to Miss Morton."

"That's not the point. People talk," significantly.

"Let them."

"That may be your idea, but it's not mine."

"Jerry," she laughed, "this must be a new leaf! I'll look in on Miss Morton if you like, to see that the proprieties are observed."

When the sittings began, Jerry manoeuvred constantly to have Jane about. There was no use trying to make her jealous, if she was not there to see the provocation. Besides, Althea needed a check, if they once began a flirtation; nothing would please her so much as annoying Jane, he knew that instinctively.

But Jane was enough to drive a machinating husband to despair. She was casual in her greetings to Miss Morton, discreet about entering the studio during posing hours. She always announced herself, so that it was impossible to be caught in a compromising position, or even a tender glance.

"For goodness' sake, Jane," he complained, "don't act as if she were posing for a nude. Walk right in when you want to come into the studio."

"I only come, by request, on behalf of the proprieties, you know. I don't wish to embarrass Miss Morton by seeming to protect her from you, Jerry."

"You act as if you thought you'd find me kissing her!" he exploded.

"You're welcome to kiss her, if it gives you pleasure and she does not object," replied Jane.

"Jane Judd, haven't you any sense of proprieties?"

"Yes, real proprieties, not surface trifles."

"You call kissing Miss Morton a surface trifle?"

"Distinctly; don't you?"

"I'd be interested to hear what you call the real proprieties," he said satirically.

"If you loved Miss Morton deeply and continued to live with me, I should say that the proprieties were outraged. That's a question of human relationship, you see. But kissing a silly woman who invites you to kiss her—pooh!—what's that?"

"I trust you don't pattern your own conduct on that belief?" hotly.

"I'm not a silly woman, little boy Jerry. I don't invite people to kiss me, because I don't like being kissed," she laughed.

Bobs came in for some tea and interrupted them in their enlivening discussion. When Jerry went out of the room, Bobs said to Jane:

"Is Jerry trailing that Morton woman again?"

"He is painting her, as Melisande."

"Do you have to have her here all the time?"

"I don't see much of her. Poor Jerry has her."

"Poor Jerry likes her. Just when you begin to think that women are getting somewhere—being something fine and busy and loyal—then you run into an Althea, and smash goes the dream!"

"Dear, we can't change our natures in one generation, nor two, nor three. When we come back a few centuries from now, think what splendid creatures women will be!"

"Lord, Jane, I don't want to come back!"

"I do—just to see my twenty-fifth great-granddaughter!"

"What gets me is that a man with brains like Jerry can endure that old sex stuff! Flattery, sentiment, adoration—bah!"

"Men can't change in a minute either, Bobs!"

"To live with a woman like you and waste one minute with Althea—well—it's weak minded, that's what it is."

"Most men don't want heroic qualities to live with, Bobs. They haven't even sensed this comrade idea of ours yet, the majority of them. They still like mastery, special privilege, their own code; after all, they're human!"

"I'm sick of 'em!" Bobs remarked.

"Bobs, you're too big a woman to let one man set you against all men. That isn't fair. We can't be against them, dear. We're just human creatures here in this complex world, trying to make life bearable—to make it constructive; we have to do it together, in affectionate fellowship."

"Give me time, old, wise Jane! But scold me and teach me, too. Let's go play with Baby."

"Baby's a man!" teased Jane.

"Bah!"

These were days of almost breathless anticipation for Jane. Christiansen was taking her to his publisher friend on the unfortunate occasion when they had encountered Jerry. The book had been in the firm's hands ever since. It seemed to Jane an eternity, in which she had not even Christiansen's encouragement, for he had disappeared on one of his frequent absences. He was at the sanatorium with his wife, Jane supposed. She went to her desk, in the white room, every morning, just the same, working over the notes for a new story which had been knocking at the door of her brain for a long time. The theme had sprung full-armed, as it were, from some remark of a character in the other book; she found that it had been developing all the time since its inception in that busy forge, the subconscious mind! The central character was a woman of a type unfamiliar to Jane, and yet, in the necromancy of imagination, she found she knew this girl like a twin soul. How she looked, what she thought, how she felt—it was all there in Jane's consciousness. It kept her mind off the fate of the other book to work at this new one. So she began it. Her habit of work stood her in good stead, and during her morning hours she actually forgot that her chance was being cast in a publishing house, on the Avenue, by a group of men she had never seen. Sometimes she despaired, other times she had full confidence. But if it came to pass that she should find a publisher and an audience—that she should be permitted to make, as her contribution, these transcriptions of life which joyed her so in the doing—could she ask one thing more of the gods?

The envelope with the imprint of the arbiters of her fate was brought her by Anna one afternoon as she sat in the nursery! Jerry was out and the house very still. She held the letter in her hand—her heart beating so that she could scarcely breathe. It seemed as if all those years of patient labour stood before her in a row, asking her to read their sentence, yet she did not break the seal.

"Baby boy," she said unsteadily to her son, "shall you care whether your mother is a woman of letters? Will you love her as well as 'just mother'?"

He smiled his ready smile at her. She made him happy; he was ready to admit that. With an unsteady hand she opened the letter and forced herself to read:

"Most sincerely yours, etc."

Jane laid her head against the foot of her son's bed, so deeply moved that she could not stir. Her joy was so great that it flooded her with a sense of consecration to a higher task. It was a fine devotional moment, to be put beside the other great moment of her life, when her son was laid in her arms.

She thought of Jerry, then; what it would mean to him. She would not wait to give him the book, she would share the precious secret with him this very day; it might be like a new marriage sacrament between them.

Then came the realization of Martin's joy at her fulfilment. She hurried to the telephone and called his club, leaving an urgent message for him to come to her if he should come back to town during the day.

She ran upstairs again to Baby, and explained it to him, every step of the long way to now. She laughed and made merry as she talked and Baby gurgled his appreciation. Then they discussed the future. She built up dreams of success and fame that rivalled even the visions that had come to Baby on his journey out of nowhere to here.

She heard the bell ring below and she flew downstairs, reaching the door almost as soon as Anna, in the hope that it was Martin.

"Oh, Jerry, I thought you were Martin!" she exclaimed.

"Sorry to be such a disappointment."

"Oh, you're not; I want to see you, too."

"Much obliged."

He went into the studio and she followed.

"I'm sorry I've irritated you Jerry, but I'm terribly excited, and not quite myself."

"What's happened?" quickly.

"The biggest thing that ever happened to me—next to Baby."

"You're in love with Christiansen!"

"Jerry, you foolish thing, no! It's something I've done."

"Go on. I'm prepared for the worst. Have you gambled away all our money, or have you killed somebody?"

She faced him, her eyes anxiously seeking his.

"Jerry, it's a serious thing. I've wanted to tell you for a long time; it may make a big difference in our life together."

"Jane, what is all this?" he demanded curtly.