The summer morn was on its way before they went to their beds.
"Your friend Christiansen is a real person, Jane," Jerry said.
"Ourfriend, Jerry," was her answer.
A long, rainy Sunday inaugurated Christiansen's visit. A cold, damp fog blew in off the Sound, and an open fire proved a comfort. Jerry went off to paint, Bobs disappeared, and Jane found herself alone with Christiansen, in the first intimacy they had known for months.
"How goes the adventure?" he asked.
"Merrily."
"You are glad you started on it?"
"Oh, yes."
"You would be," he granted.
"Why would I be?"
"You belong to the 'Friends of Fate,' as some poet called them. Some of us struggle against Fate, some of us make it an ally. You would do that."
"But Fate, so far, has been my friend."
"Those long lonely years of work by yourself?"
"But I needed them. I learned everything of value that I know, during those years."
"You see, I spoke truly," he smiled, nodding at her.
"You meet life that way, too," she said.
"I've met it all ways, my friend, fighting, acquiescent, not always with valour. Now I have come to a timewhen I depend upon an armour, which fends off outside troubles, but also keeps in those I already have."
"No one could understand human beings so well, could possess your fierceness and your mercy toward them, without holding the key to suffering."
"Wise Jane Judd," he smiled. "I have had a long journey with Fate. For twenty years I have been paying for youthful folly. Do you know about me, Jane?"
"Jerry told me that you are married, that your wife lives."
"She has moved from one sanatorium to another for twenty years, Jane."
"How dreadful, my friend."
"I go to see her when I can. I have been with her this summer. It is like visiting some little girl I knew when I was a lad.... I wanted you to know."
"Does she suffer?"
"Apparently not. She just is, that's all. No past, no future."
"But your past, your future, Martin?"
"I can have none," he said steadily.
"Did you love her very much?"
"I suppose so, as a boy. What does a child of twenty know of love? She was eighteen when we ran away. After about five years this malady developed, a sort of melancholia at first, then a kind of mental vacuity for all these many years."
"It's unfair; it's cruel!" she cried.
"So it is. There have been times when I have cursed God in fury, but after all it is not left us to choose our owntests. If Fate were only kind, we would not need to woo her. Perhaps I needed my hard years as you needed yours."
"I can't believe that, but I know what they have made of you—what I have reaped from them."
He laid his hand on hers for a second.
"Thank you, Jane. You've been a little flowering place for me, of repose and peace. Tell me about the work."
"It grows in plan, but not in execution. I lie abed until noon, these days, and I spend the time thinking about the book. I make notes; sometimes I write a chapter. But I feel that when my baby comes I shall suddenly enter a new world, I shall know such wonderful things to put in my book."
"Assuredly. You could not plumb the one greatest spiritual and physical experience without your eyes being unsealed to all the fundamental verities."
Jane rose, and turned a canvas, which leaned against the wall, into the light, where Martin could see it.
"Do you like this?" she asked.
He looked at it silently for several moments.
"Jerry has sensed it, too," he said. "This is a fine thing—his best."
"He can paint, if I can get him away from those portraits."
"It's a cursed thing for an artist to be clever. He would better be mediocre. It's your husband's curse. He may have a big gift, but if his cleverness is the thing the rabble want to buy, and he sells it to them, his gift is doomed."
"Who's doomed?" said Jerry, coming in, glowing from his long tramp in the rain.
"You are, if you paint Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon, when you can do this," Christiansen answered.
"You like that?"
"This has feeling and excellent painting. It is real, vital, fine."
"I felt I had something there."
"You've got a pretty knack with pretty ladies, but don't let it ruin you."
"Pretty ladies pay, it might be added, and we need the money just now."
"Face the truth, then. Swear to yourself this is a temporary aberration, and be true to yourself, Paxton."
"Well, if I don't turn out to be my own best self with Jane, and Bobs, and now you after me, I haven't any best self! My own opinion is that I'm probably a rotten second-rater."
"Not even the greatest artists are first-rate all the time, Jerry," Jane urged.
"That lets me out, then," he laughed. "I got some nice effects out there in the fog; it's a soaking white blanket down on the beach."
"You didn't see Bobs?"
"No; is she out? You two been gabbling all morning?"
"Yes, we've had a fine gabble," laughed Christiansen. "I'll put on a mackintosh and go in search of your Miss Bobs."
Jerry went to the door with him, and Jane stole off to her room. She did not want to talk to Jerry just then;she wanted to think over all the things she and Martin had said to each other during those friendly hours.
Out on the muddy road, Christiansen strode along at a great pace. He wanted to be alone, to think out his chaotic thoughts. He had come to the Paxtons' with no idea at all that Jane was to have a child, and the knowledge had come to him with a shock. He had long since admitted to himself that he was more interested in Jane's development, in her search for expression, than he had been in anything for years. He liked the quality of her mind; he thought her possessed of that rare gift, a sense of style. She had absorbed the masters, yet was no pupil of any of them. He was convinced that she had a future, and it was of this he was thinking when he exclaimed at the announcement of her marriage, "Child, child, what have you done?" The baby would be another fetter, and she must be free to work out her artistic salvation. It might be years before that freedom came. Would her gift grow richer, or die for want of use?
"How can we expect to manage it?" he growled into the fog.
"What?" said Bobs, at his elbow.
"Wraith, where did you drop from?" he demanded.
"Out of the fog to answer your question. What was it?"
"How can a woman be an artist and a human being at the same time?"
She peered at him before she replied.
"She can't. She can only be them in relays. Artist awhile, human awhile. Living takes too much from her.Loving, wiving, mothering are too devouring. Men manage their part of it, but women cannot; that is my decision."
"You think she must choose between them?"
"No, that is too big a price to pay for either."
"How, then?"
"She must have both some of the time, neither all the time."
"But isn't that increasingly difficult with a man to consider, possibly a child or two?"
"Difficult? Do you think there is anything more difficult than being a woman to-day? I don't," she answered bitterly.
"The most difficult thing I know is being a man."
"Why do we bother with it at all, when just a little plop out there in the fog would end it?"
"Would it, though?"
"Don't you think souls are ever allowed to rest? Do they plunge us into some new form the minute we leave the old?"
"It's the doubt about it that is salutary."
"If you go out, you're a coward. If you stay on, it's because you're afraid to go out," she cried.
"Even so. Therefore you come to grips with life, and prove yourself a good soldier."
"Like Jane," Bobs said. "Isn't she fine?"
"She is a very rare human."
"She's the best friend I ever had."
"I think I can say that, too," he said.
"Does she understand your problems just as she does mine?"
"Yes."
"You remember the hymn that talks about 'being at rest in God?' That's the way I feel about Jane."
"You should do a study of her. You owe us Jane's broad, God-like beneficence to offset your 'Woman.'"
"I am going to do her, as soon as I grow up to her."
"That's a tribute to our friend."
"Aren't those fog shapes startling?" she said, pointing with her stick. "No wonder the soldiers saw miracles on the field of Mons."
"But the real miracle that happened there, they did not see," he answered.
"What was that?"
"The Christmas truce in the trenches was the miracle of our times—the great hope of our future. If men can respect one another as enemies, instead of hating one another, some day we may have an end of war."
"I cannot dream nor philosophize war out of life, Mr. Christiansen. If it is not between nations, it will be between classes. If it is not for booty, it will be for survival. How can we hope to do away with it?"
"By another miracle, already begun—a sense of brotherhood in the world of men. If, even in the trenches, men clasped hands on Christmas Day, and gave the enemy Christmas greeting; if only a few employers lead off with a coöperative ownership; if only a few workmen in the unions meet the employers in fairness, it means that the day of universal amnesty is not a dream."
"You dear, big believer in miracles!" she scoffed.
"Poor little cynic, snarling at the heels of truth," he retorted.
The heavens opened at that moment, and the rain descended with midsummer violence.
"Shall we run for the woods?" he asked.
"No, I like it," answered she, lifting her face to the torrent.
So they ploughed through the mud puddles, and arrived home, wet through, but tingling with racing blood and clear brains. As Bobs ran through the hall on her way to her room, she called to her hostess:
"Jane, let there be tons of food!"
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. Sometimeshe 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 thewoods 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 chainaround 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.
Jane endured three nervous days at the hospital before she was ill. Jerry was in and out all day, and Bobs and Jinny Chatfield spent much of the time with her. She was grateful to them, but secretly she wished they would not fuss over her. She had wanted to crawl away into this quiet place, to get this ordeal over by herself.
She was interested in the hospital régime, which was entirely new to her. She liked the smooth efficiency of it. Quiet nurses coming and going, doctors padding silently up and down the halls. She had an agreeable nurse, who answered her questions intelligently. She developed an interest in the cases about her.
Her room looked off over the Hudson, and she spent hours watching the boats. She learned the hours of the Albany boat, and often she laughed at the tugs, they were so like pompous little men. She spoke to Bobs about it one day.
"The river has just as individual a life as Broadway, and the boats are so like people."
Bobs smiled at the idea.
"I'm glad you've got something to amuse you. You must be nearly wild with this waiting."
"Oh, no. I have lots to mull over in my mind. I visitedmy neighbour yesterday, and saw her new baby. Bobs, women don't realize yet what Twilight Sleep is bringing to them. It is one of the biggest discoveries of our age."
"How, Jane?"
"Don't you see what wide-reaching results it may have for us? If we are relieved of the nervous shock and agony of birth, if the dread of this ordeal is lessened, that alone is important. But it will mean everything to the woman with a job, or the mother with other small children dependent upon her care."
"You mean her escape from the shock and pain?"
"I mean that she gets up, in two or three days, in almost normal health, instead of lying by for weeks."
"But your labouring woman gets up now in two or three days, doesn't she?"
"Yes, but look at the results. Talk to the doctors at the free dispensaries about what it does to them. I honestly believe that those two German doctors in the Black Forest have done more to free women than any other single agency of our times. I'm so glad to live now, Bobs, to be part of this wonderful century, to take advantage of its big experiments."
"Jane, the way you eat up the experiences of life is amazing to me!"
They both laughed at that, and veered off to Bobs's impressions of the stable Jerry had rented. He had taken her over it, to help him in some decisions.
"Bobs, the truth, now. Is it a wild mistake?"
"It's perfectly charming, but it looks a bit plutocratic from my humble attic point of view."
"It will probably ruin him to keep it up."
"He has it all planned. I never knew Jerry to be so sane. He says he has several portrait orders now, and more coming."
"Just when we wanted to get him away from portraits. Oh, Bobs, life gets so complicated, and mixed up," mourned Jane.
"Don't I know that? You can't have babies for nothing in these days, Jane. He must have known that."
"But he didn't want to have any. This is my baby, pure and simple, and I really ought to pay for having it."
"You ridiculous person! I think you're paying your share. Jerry will be mad about it, when it's here. He's the kind. I know plenty of them. They make me furious, but they're all right in the end."
"I wish he didn't have to see it until it was two years old. I've seen some of the tiny ones, Bobs, and they're awful."
The next day Jane's time came. She asked them to telephone for Jerry, and when he arrived she seemed to find comfort in having him beside her. They talked and he read to her until she could not listen any longer. Just before she had her first hypodermic she turned to him.
"Stay with me, Jerry."
"Of course."
"If anything happens to me, let Bobs take care of the baby."
That was her last conscious sentence, and her next was: "Can't you hurry it up?" Then she vaguely saw thedoctor giving something in a glass to a haggard-looking man, who sat by the bed. She finally made out that the man was Jerry. She heard the doctor say that he would be all right, so she went to sleep in peace.
Seven hours later she opened her eyes. It was night. The nurse was bending over a bed in the corner. Her mind went back.
"Is that Jerry?" she asked.
"It'slittleJerry," the nurse said, and lifted a swaddled bundle and brought it to her. She looked at it long and seriously.
"You're sure that's mine?" she said.
"Very sure."
"Take it away, please."
"It's a grand baby, Mrs. Paxton."
"Did my husband see it?"
"Not yet. The doctor put him to bed."
"Don't let him see it. Keep it covered up."
"But he'll be wanting to see his son."
"Not till he's better looking. It would be an awful shock to Jerry to see it now."
Then she went to sleep again. When she woke, Jerry was beside her.
"I'm sorry he's so plain," was her first word.
"He's a fine boy, Jane," he said, with a gulp.
Two days later, when Bobs was admitted, Jane confessed to her her shortcomings in the new rôle.
"I didn't do it right at all, Bobs."
"Why not?"
"In books and plays the mother always says, 'My baby,my own beautiful boy,' when they put her infant in her arms. The father always says, 'little mother!' You know, you've seen it in pictures. Well,Isaid: 'It's ugly, take it away,' and Jerry lied to comfort me."
Bobs and the nurse laughed at this tragic tale.
"I like him better than I did at first, though. He has nice hands," Jane admitted.
Bobs inspected the hero again.
"I think he's a duck of a bambino," she said. "He looks quite human."
"Well, I should hope so," said his mother indignantly.
"This room looks like a garden, Jane."
"Isn't it lovely? Jerry is beggaring himself. All the dear people in the studios, the Brendons, even Althea, sent a tribute. And Martin sends flowers every day. I find I love being a part of this smooth mechanism. I like the things the nurse feeds me, and my importance. I'm ruined, probably."
Jerry came in.
"Hello, Bobs. Doesn't she look fine?"
"She does."
"Did she let you see the exhibit over here?"
"I forced her to, the unwomanly thing. She derides his manly beauty."
"He'll be all right when he grows up to his skin," laughed Jerry. "Talk about the Magic Skin, he's got enough for a fat man. It took some ingenuity to get it wrinkled up all over him, so he could carry it."
"You unfeeling parents! I hope he hears every word you say, and turns against you in your old age."
"We feel that he is interesting, but not beautiful, don't we, Jane?"
She nodded, smiling.
"I shall repeat this to you at times when you are doting on his looks."
"We'll take your dare, Bobs. Say, Jane, when do you want to see Christiansen? He asked me when he could pay his respects."
"Let him come to-morrow, Jerry, at five."
"'Tis done. Ever see such a model husband, Bobs?"
"I invite you both to come to-morrow at five."
"Let's take her up, Bobs, and watch our Martin pin a rose on handsome Jerry."
Jane sat in the early dusk the next evening and watched the lights come out along the river banks, and twinkle on the boats. Martin was announced, and she went to him, hands out, face shining.
"But it is a miracle!" he exclaimed. "You are well, and beautiful again. Where is this mythical child?"
She laughed and led him to the bed where the baby lay, wide-eyed, inspecting the brand-new universe.
"This is Martin, my son. I want you to be friends," she said softly to him.
Martin bent to insert one forefinger in the tightly closed fist.
"How do you do, my lad? I greet you to this planet."
The baby looked at the source of the big voice. Then an infantile spasm crossed his face.
"Ha! he laughs at our planet! He knows Venus, perhaps, or Mars."
"He looks as if he had known the jungle. He's like a wise little old monkey," laughed Jane.
"So he is. That always fascinates me about the young of our race, they seem to hook us on to our past, to our blood brothers Babu and Mowgli, the Manling. You remember how Whitman said it?
"I am the acme of things accomplished, and I an encloser of things to be.Long I was hugged close, long and long.Immense have been the preparations for me,Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me.Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen—For room to me, stars kept aside in their own rings,They sent influences to look after what was to hold me."
He spoke the words softly to small Jerry.
"Yes, yes, that's what I've been searching. It is splendid to be a part of the great processes of life!" said Jane, head high, eyes shining.
"Even so, my friend, I have come to congratulate you upon your valour, and your achievement."
They sat for an hour, talking earnestly.
"What now, comrade? A rest for a year or so, until the youngling is on his feet?"
"No, no. I am bursting with new ideas for the book. I shall finish it this winter, Martin."
"Not too fast. You have crowded the big experiences into this year, indomitable Jane. 'Easy does it,' as the old proverb says."
"I have gobbled them down, but I will digest my bigexperiences slowly, I promise you. I am full of life and vigour and passion for work. This year ought to bring a big harvest."
"Your book is in my thoughts a great deal. I have spoken of it to a publisher friend, and he wants to see it. He will appreciate its quality, I know. It will not be a 'best seller,' Jane."
"Of course not. I don't want it to. I suppose my public is like the baby. I shall get acquainted with it, after it is born, and love it. But just now my mind is full of saying what is in my thoughts—in my heart."
"You will get the audience that belongs to you. 'I know my own shall come to me' is true between author and audience."
"I haven't told Jerry, yet."
"You are still shy about it?"
"No one knows but you."
"That fact may lead me on over to posterity. It may be my one claim to fame."
"You're making fun of me, Martin!"
"Well, here, we can't have that," said Jerry, coming in briskly.
"Here you are," said Jane, patting the hand he laid on her shoulder.
Christiansen shook hands with him.
"Again my congratulations."
"Thanks. It's a pretty fine exhibition, isn't it?"
"It is—the best you've made," replied Martin, joining in the laugh.
Jerry made the most careful plans for the transfer of his family to the new studio. He was like an eager little boy in his anxiety to have Jane see and approve the home he had chosen for them. It was a bright, late fall day, with sun and clear brisk air, when they started downtown, with the trained nurse in charge of baby.
"I feel as if the river had become my friend. I shall come up often and visit it," Jane said as they turned off Riverside Drive. "My! how many people there are and how they hurry," she added.
"Back in the world again, Jane. Are you sorry?"
"No. Glad. I feel like a dynamo, waiting to blow off."
After awhile they turned into Washington Mews and drew up before the stable, with its box trees and its window hedges, its quaint little windows, and brass door-rail.
"Here we are!" cried Jerry.
"Oh, Jerry, it is adorable!"
"Wait till you get inside."
The door was opened by a middle-aged woman.
"This is Anna, who is to look after us, Jane."
"Good-afternoon, Anna. I am glad you're here."
"Yes'm. I'm here. Oh! ain't the baby sweet?"
A little, square hall welcomed them, with a reception-room at one side and white stairs leading up to the second floor. It was done in pale yellow and Chinese blue and led directly into the great studio room which was beyond. It was a noble room of great size and distinction, with one whole wall of glass, the opposite one containing a fireplace which held six-foot logs. It was decorated in shades of brown, with the most daring use of colour—orange, black, blue, and yellow. A balcony swung over half the room, with a magnificent Chinese coat hung over the rail.
"Jerry, it is perfect!" Jane exclaimed.
"Isn't it ripping? I wish we could buy it."
"It's wonderful enough to me to rent it. Let's go upstairs."
Above, there were several bedrooms, a dressing-room, and baths.
"This is the sunniest room, so I allotted it to his Royal Nobs," Jerry explained.
"How clever of you to have his bed ready."
"Oh, Bobs did that. This is our suite."
"Jerry, are we really going to live here?"
"We are! I'm so glad you like it. I could hardly breathe for fear you wouldn't," he said excitedly.
"How could I help liking it? It is beautiful!"
They went over it from top to bottom, discovering new joys. Anna displayed her department with pride. Also her bedroom, light and attractively furnished, with a bathroom off.
"I think we are going to be very happy here, Anna."
"Yes, ma'am, if I can suit you."
"I think you can. Come up and see baby in his new bed."
That night at dinner, Jerry smiled at her over the candles.
"Isn't this fun, Jane?"
"It's like a dream, Jerry. I'm afraid I'll wake up."
"We can give some real parties in this place."
"We must have all the studio crowd in for a house-warming," she answered.
Bobs and the Chatfields came in, during the evening, to wish them welcome. Bobs slipped off upstairs to see baby, and Jane followed.
"I see your fine hand in many things provided for our comfort and pleasure, dear."
"Oh, I just looked after things a bit. Doesn't he look like a kitten, all relaxed and soft?"
"He is a wonderful possession," Jane said, with so much feeling that Bobs dared not look at her.
Life in the new home fell into its wonted routine. They became accustomed to the new luxuries with the usual ease and celerity. The baby's régime was, for the present, the nurse's affair, except for certain essential contributions on Jane's part. Jerry's sittings began, so Jane took up the old habit of running away to the white room at Mrs. Biggs's, as soon as the house and her son were started on the day. She had three full hours, all her own, and she gloried in them.
She attacked the book with fervour. But as she read over the completed chapters, she found no trace of herpresent self. It seemed dry, too analytical, too intellectualized.
"What has happened to me?" she asked herself. "Something has opened up in me like sluice gates. I feel that I want to deluge the whole world with feeling, with happiness."
True to her instinct, she began to work over the whole book. For the first time she wrote with abandon. The chapters came hot, fluid, swift. She marvelled at her speed, and with difficulty she dragged herself out of her work-trance to go back to her small son.
For two weeks she wrote at white heat; then a crisis arrived. She realized that they could not afford to keep the trained nurse any longer, and her departure meant the loss of Jane's freedom. She thought about it a good deal, pondering a way to work it out. Anna proved a treasure; she marketed, cooked, served; acted as major-domo over the whole establishment, but she could not add baby to her duties. She did not want to confess about her work to Jerry yet, and at the same time she knew she simply could not be interrupted now.
"Jerry, the nurse leaves to-morrow," she said to him.
"Too bad we can't afford to keep her on."
"I was wondering. Your model comes about eleven, doesn't she?"
"Usually."
"You don't often go out before that, do you?"
"No."
"Would it make any difference to you if I took my time off from eight to eleven, after baby's early feeding, andwould you sort of look after him, if he should wake up before I get back?"
He stared at her.
"You mean you intend to turn out to walk or shop or whatever you do, at eight in the morning?"
"Yes. I have to get up early on baby's account anyway."
"But, Jane, I don't know anything about kids. If he cried, I wouldn't know what to do."
"I could show you. It is my job the rest of the twenty-four hours, you know."
"I suppose it's only fair, but...."
"I think you ought to learn what to do for him, just as I did. I might die or get hurt."
"Don't be silly."
"Is it a bargain? Will you take a three-hour period?"
"On your responsibility."
"Oh, no; it must be on yours, Jerry. If you don't do a whole-hearted job, I can't trust you. He is our baby, you know—not mine."
"All right," he sighed. "When do I begin?"
"To-morrow. Come up now, and the nurse and I will show you how to manage him. He almost never wakes up," she reassured him.
The next day they inaugurated the plan. Jane had an early breakfast, before Jerry was up, bathed and fed baby, and left him asleep on the balcony. Then she fled to her haven, worked until a few minutes before eleven, when she went back to the studio. From then until lunch time she could revise, or work over her first draft,but for the first process, she still had quiet and her own free soul.
The first few days the scheme worked beautifully. The fourth day, Jerry Jr. awoke at nine-thirty, and all efforts to induce him to sleep, on the part of his parent and Anna, were in vain. Jane found Jerry pushing the baby carriage up and down the studio furiously. He was hot, flushed, and mad.
"Oh, did he waken?"
"Did he? He's been acting like the devil for hours."
"That's too bad."
"Where do you go for all these hours, Jane? You can't walk all this time."
"Have I ever asked what you do with your time, Jerry?"
"I don't expect you to do my work."
"Do you feel that you are doing my work when you share the care of our baby for three hours a day?"
"It's no man's work, pushing a baby carriage."
"If you feel demeaned by looking after our son, I shall certainly not ask your help again."
"It's no fun, trying to keep him quiet."
"No. I've discovered that."
She took their protesting offspring upstairs without more words. But the next day she did not go to her work. When Jerry finished his late breakfast, he found her in the studio.
"You still here?" he asked.
She nodded cheerfully.
"Aren't you late getting off?"
"I'm not going out."
"Why not?"
"I thought we decided that yesterday."
"I didn't know we decided anything."
"You were very definite in your complaint that I shirked my duties upon you."
"Can't Anna take care of him in the morning?"
"No. She has all she can manage."
"When are you going to get your exercise?"
"Naturally I cannot take any, unless I push the baby carriage."
"Good Lord! Go get your things on. I'll watch him."
"Thank you, Jerry, but I cannot accept sacrifices. It must be your job and mine, and nobody abused."
"I thought it over last night. I agree. Your job and mine; nobody abused. Now, scat."
"Much obliged, Jerry; that's fair and square."
This time the agreement held. Jerry learned to handle the occasional outbursts of his son without calling for help. In the meantime Jane's work was growing. Martin Christiansen returned after a month away from town, and Jane sent him a dozen chapters of the rewritten version. It brought him to the studio, post haste. Jerry was painting, so they sat alone in the reception-room.
"But, Jane, what has happened to you?" he demanded.
"Life, experience, marriage, baby; all the big things have happened to me since I began that book. I'm only just beginning to beme, Martin."
"I was astonished, Jane! It was as if sunshine suddenly played over a gray room. The room was charming,well appointed, choice, but a trifle cold. But now, you've let the sun into it. It's warm, it's human, it's home."
"That's what I want you to feel. I'm just as new-born as baby. I had to write it all over, to bring me up to date. I feel so young—younger than I ever felt in my life. Of course, youth must be a state of mind, since I find mine when I'm almost thirty."
He smiled his appreciation.
"Certainly, wise woman, youth has nothing to do with time. It comes to some of us young and to some of us late. When it comes to us at thirty we are lucky, for by that time we know how to value it. The old saying that no actress under thirty is a good Juliet has true psychology behind it. She has only just gotten far enough away at thirty to analyze youth, to dramatize it, get at the heart of it."
"My youthful vigour is such, Martin, that at this rate I shall be through by Christmas," she smiled.
"How do you manage—small infant, house, gifted husband, and secret career?"
"I have health, brains, and a most sensible husband. He helps with the baby."
"You mean it?" unbelievingly.
"Certainly. While I work, he watches son; while he works, I watch son."
"But he doesn't know about your work."
"No. But I convinced him that it was fair to divide the responsibility a little."
"I'd no notion that he had modern ideas on this subject."
"He hasn't. He is the most anti-feministic, 'woman's-place-is-in-the-home' enthusiast you ever heard preach."
"But he practises Ellen Key!"
"Oh, well; who ever held a preacher strictly to practice?" she laughed.
"And we men go on believing that the serpent actually fooled Eve, back there in the Garden!" laughed Martin Christiansen.
The studio house-warming was a great event, in artist circles, and inspired Jane to announce a day at home.
"Jane, what has come over you? I used to think, when we lived in the old studio, that you were the most indifferent person, socially, that I ever met," said Jerry.
"I apologize, Jerry, but you've got to get used to a new me. I want people to come here; I want them to think it is a happy, refreshing place to come to."
"Jane, have you any regular seasons for changing personalities? I have gotten used to two totally different beings since I have known you, and now you present me with a third!"
"Like being married to a chameleon, isn't it?"
"No, for a chameleon takes its colour from its surroundings, but you don't."
"No; I take the colour of my interior," she laughed.
"You'd better see a doctor if your interior changes colour every few months."
"I've had all the big experiences of my life in the last two years. Of course I'm not the same person. If marriage and motherhood leave a woman unchanged, she is made of marble, or tin."
"You even look different, Jane."
"Why not, if Iamdifferent?"
"You are beautiful and spirited. You used to be a trifle cold."
"You think I'm more human now, Jerry."
"You've come to life, Jane. Whom are you going to have at your parties?"
"All sorts, uptown people, downtown people, the ones who do things and the ones who buy things."
"Sounds good. Do I officiate throughout the ceremony?"
"Of course, Jerry. I couldn't do it without you."
"Why not?" curiously.
"You have the real gift of making people happy; I'm only the assistant."
"Jane, do I makeyouhappy?" he asked suddenly, directly.
She looked at him seriously a second before she answered:
"I don't know— I hadn't thought about it."
"Don't you think it's important to be happy, Jane?"
"Why, yes, but I think it just happens, doesn't it? You cannot make it happen. It is like courtesy, or spirituality, it results from everything in you, your whole habit of life and thought."
"Does it? I thought it was something you went after, and got," said Jerry.
"Like a box of sweets," she smiled.
"Like a box of sweets, and then you ran the risk of stomachache."
"I call that satisfaction, not happiness."
"What is happiness to you, Jane?"
"A miracle," she evaded.
From the very first, the days at home were a success. It is difficult to say just what constitutes hospitality. One hostess accomplishes it without effort; another, with the same material equipment, fails utterly. Jane managed it. There was an air of distinction, which in no way interfered with the comfort and informality of her guests. At most studio teas, people smoke, and loll about, but there was no hint of Bohemianism, in that sense of the word, at Jane's parties.
Mrs. Brendon always came, bringing her friends with her. Martin Christiansen brought all the distinguished men and women who came to New York during the winter to the Paxtons. It was noised about that you always met famous people there, so the popularity of the stable-studio was established.
One afternoon found an English poet, a French actress, and a prominent opera singer among their guests. Jerry watched Jane handle them with interest. She took them as a matter of course, saw that they met the people who would entertain them. She treated them like human beings, not like exhibitions.
"Bobs, Signor Travetti desires tea and amusement," she said, presenting the famous tenor.
"I guarantee the first, because Mrs. Paxton supplies that, but the second...." she lifted despairing eyes.
"I take ma chances," laughed the man, dropping into the chair beside her.
"Jerry, come and look after Mademoiselle de Monde," Jane said to him.
"What shall I talk to her about?"
"About herself. Make love to her," ordered his wife.
"Madame Paxton is veree beautiful, vereedistinguée," his companion said, as Jane swept away from them.
"She is," said Jerry, with conviction.
Mrs. Brendon arrived shortly and he joined her.
"Jerry, how do you get all these people here?"
"I don't know. They can't possibly come for tea and cakes, so it must be Jane."
"She is a wonder! Did you know all this about her when you married her?"
"Certainly," lied Jerry.
"Everybody admires her. Is that the English poet over there?"
"Yes, there are heaps of celebrities here to-day. I will gather in some for you," he laughed.
Just then Althea entered the room and he almost lost control of his features. He saw her swift glance of appraisal as she went to Jane, who greeted her as if they had met yesterday.
"What a beautiful studio, Mrs. Paxton," she chattered to cover the embarrassment of the moment.
"Yes, we like it. Jerry, here is an old friend of yours," Jane said.
"How do you do?" he remarked.
"How do you do, Strange Man?" she exclaimed.
Jane moved away.
"It's beautiful, Jerry. Youaregetting on."
"Yes, thanks be."
"I hear of these teas of yours everywhere."
"They are Jane's teas; I have no credit for them."
"I suppose Mr. Christiansen supplies her celebrities."
"Is he a celebrity agent?"
"He knows everybody, of course, and his devotion to your wife is the talk of the town."
"Mrs. Paxton seems to act as a magnet to celebrities. She needs no assistance," he said, ignoring the end of her remark.
"How fortunate!"
"Are you having a good time this winter?" he asked, to change the subject.
"I should think you would scarcely ask me that."
"Why shouldn't I ask you?"
"You know how miserable you've made me."
"Ihave? What are you talking about?"
"Everybody talks about it."
"About what?"
"The way you dropped me."
"But I didn't; you dropped me."
"No one believes that. They think your wife is jealous and made you give me up."
"I don't know what you mean by 'give you up.'"
"Last winter and spring you were always with me."
"I'm awfully sorry if I damaged your reputation in any way."
"It isn't only my reputation you damaged, Jerry."
"Look here, Althea, this is foolish kind of talk for us tobe indulging in. There was never anything between us but a mild flirtation, and we both know it."
"How cruel men are!" she replied tragically.
"Aren't they?" he laughed. "You ought to get them all transported to Mars; then you would have a perfect world, for woman's delectation. You know Mr. Chatfield, don't you, Miss Morton? Chat, she holds a brief on man's inhumanity to woman. Jane is calling me, so I leave you as my proxy. Defend us, Chat!"
He bowed and sauntered off. As he came to the tea table Bobs remarked:
"I see dear Althy is with us. Some nerve—what?"
"Oh, no—a forgiving nature. You never did her justice."
"Go bring her over here. I owe her one or two."
"No, thanks. I don't want to turn Jane's party into a battlefield."
"Never fear. Althy is for trench warfare, she never fights in the open."
"Admire her, don't you, Bobs?"
"Vawstly!"
He moved on to another group, chatting for a few seconds. Then he joined Jane, the poet, and Christiansen, who were in earnest discussion. Jane was speaking.
"I think poetry is like religion, we must get it back into our lives, as a working principle, before it can count with us again. Both have grown so stiff with tradition and Sunday usage that we must work them into the very stuff of our lives to make them real."
"Yes, that is just the case, Mrs. Paxton," the poetagreed. "There is an outcry against the modern, radical poet, but it is because the dear Philistine forgets that Shelley's message and work were as advanced in his time as ours are to-day."
"You will find Mrs. Paxton an omniverous reader of poetry," said Christiansen, "a reader with the appreciation of a poet."
Jerry moved on, irritated in some subtle way at what he named Christiansen's showman manner of exhibiting Jane's good taste. Couldn't the Englishman find out that she had some ideas without Christiansen's help? He, her own husband, had never heard her speak of poetry. How did Christiansen know so much of her interests?
The more he thought of it, the more it annoyed him. Christiansen's manner with Jane implied a life-long intimacy. What, in point of fact, did he, Jerry, know about Jane? He had never asked any questions about her people or her past, and she had vouchsafed no information. How did he know when or how she had met this man, what he had been to her? In the haste of their mad marriage, it had not mattered about her past. He intended that she should have only a future with him. He smiled grimly at that. It looked now, as if he might have only a future with Jane!
But after a year and a half of marriage, what did he know about her? About her thoughts, her interests, even her habits? Where did she go on these daily, three-hour absences. Did she meet Christiansen then? He thrust the idea out of his mind to find it tapping for admission again. What kind of egotist and fool had he been,not to learn to know this woman with whom he lived? There was not a person in the room who did not know her as well as he did. Bobs knew her better. He went over to the table, where she presided.
"You look as if you'd rather eat me, than amuse me," she remarked.
"Bobs, would you consider Jane an intellectual woman?" he inquired abruptly.
"Intellectual? Let me see. She is the best-read woman I know. She's a shark on modern poetry; she has a sound acquaintance with the principles of art; she's seen all the pictures and statuary in New York, and has ideas about them; she has looked into the labour question for women. I might not call her intellectual, but I'd call her up-to-the-minute in modern thought."
"Good Lord!" said Jerry.
"Oh, you don't know the first living thing about Jane. The baby knows more about her."
"You needn't rub it in."
"She's the biggest person in this room, is Jane."
"What started you on this Jane worship, Bobs?"
"Something happened to me that knocked the very foundations out from under my life for a while," she answered him directly. "I would have killed myself if it had not been for Jane."
"Did she know what was the matter with you?"
"Yes, but she pretended not to know whom it was I cared for."
"She knew that, too?"
"All the time. She never forced anything on me, shejust stood by, and helped me weather it. Last summer she put the finishing touches on my cure. I love her as I never loved any human being."
"I didn't know about this."
"Of course not. You were too busy with Althea to notice what Jane was making of the pieces you had left of me. Sort of poetic justice, after all."
"Good heavens, Bobs, don't!"
"Not just the place to discuss our stormy past," she laughed.
Some one demanded tea, so Jerry escaped. He felt as if he had spent the afternoon gathering information about Jane, focussing his entire attention upon her. He had discovered his wife to be a strange and rather powerful personality, reacting on all the people about her, including himself.
He did an odd thing, then. He could not have explained the impulse to himself. But he left the party and walked upstairs into the nursery, where Mrs. Biggs guarded his son. The baby was awake, and Jerry sat down beside him, staring into his face, trying to penetrate through him, into the depths of that opaque being who was his mother.