"I will do no such thing!" he cried angrily. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself--a woman--a _woman_ suggesting she doesn't want a baby!"

"I didn't say it! I suggest I don't want one of yours!"

"My God!" said Osborn, recoiling.

Marie grew ice-cold when she had said a thing that she would have thought impossible to say; but there was a keen triumph in the ice-coldness. She had silenced him.

"Isn't married life ugly?" she asked. "Isn't it little and mean and sordid and stingy and unjust? You create a condition which will tie me to the house; you are angry with the condition because it's expensive; you're angry with me for being house-tied. Can I help it? Can I help anything? Do you think I don't _want_ theatres and to go out to dinner with you as I used to? The baby's yours, isn't he, as well as mine?"

"Marie," said Osborn, "Marie--"

He searched for things to say.

"I wish I had never married you--I wish I had never married at all,"

said Marie. "Men won't understand; they're impatient, they're brutes!

And you haven't answered my question yet."

Osborn went out of the flat.

The inevitable answer of the goaded man--anger, silence and retreat--cried aloud to her.

She was afraid of herself.

What terrible things she had said--she, a little, new, young wife and mother!

She spoke out into the stillness, shocked, appealing, still trembling with her rage.

"Oh, God! Oh, God!... Oh, God, help me!"

CHAPTER XI

THE BANGED DOOR

When Julia had left the Kerrs' flat and was turning out of the building into the windy street, she met Desmond Rokeby about to enter.

Her handsome face was grim beneath her veil and her eyes snapped. As she pulled up short and stood in Rokeby's path, she expressed to him the idea of a very determined obstacle.

"How nice to meet you!" he cried goodhumouredly.

"I'm glad I've met you," she replied.

Rokeby surveyed her quizzically. "What an admission," he said, "from an arch-enemy! You _are_ the enemy of us all, aren't you? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Where were you going?" Julia countered.

"To No. 30."

"Then--yes--you can do something for me. You can go away again."

"Are they out?" said Rokeby; "are they ill? What's the mystery?"

She looked up and down the road; she gave him the impression that she stamped her feet and frowned, though to appearances she did neither.

She ordered:

"Don't loiter here. Osborn--Mr. Kerr'll be home directly, and if he sees you he'll take you in, won't he?"

"Probably, I should say."

"Then come away."

"If I may walk a little way with you."

"I don't care where you walk with me," Julia replied vigorously, "if it isn't into Marie's flat."

She set a brisk pace down the opposite side of the road, as if assuming that Osborn might pass them unnoticing on the other, and Rokeby kept step unprotestingly. "It must be after six o'clock," he said presently.

"It is," she replied.

"Which is your way home?"

Julia described her route with a brevity characteristic of her.

He slackened pace, so that she looked round at him, impatiently questioning.

"Look here, Miss Winter," he coaxed, "don't go home. Stay out and dine with me. Of course we're mere strangers, but we're both so emancipated, aren't we? No, emancipated's an out-of-date word. We've passed that, haven't we, long ago? We're--I dunno what we are; there's no limit to us. Isn't it jolly? So do come into town and dine with me."

"I think I'd like to, thanks," said Julia; "I'm not quite sure."

"Why aren't you quite sure?"

"I might be bored with you. How do I know?"

Rokeby looked at her with an astonished respect and a glim of his saving humour. "So you might; er--I hadn't thought of it; but 'pon my word, I'll do my best. Won't you come if I guarantee that?"

And he wanted her to come, oddly.

"Thanks," said Julia, "I will."

"Queer thing," Rokeby thought in his surprised soul, "when a girl all on her own in this hard world hesitates to come out to a good dinner with not a bad fellow in case she might be bored."

"I know what you're thinking," said Julia calmly; "you're thinking--or you are _almost_--that it was nearly a bit of cheek on my part. I don't blame you. You're spoilt, all of you. The girls you take out earn their dinners and stalls too conscientiously; no matter how dull you are, they take pains to shine. Frankly, if _you_ take _me_ out, _you've_ got to shine. I demand it. And you'd be surprised at the number of invitations an exacting thing like me gets."

"No, I shouldn't," said Rokeby softly, bending his head to look with a new interest at her face. "That's sheer cleverness, that is; that's brilliance. You've seized it. A woman should have confidence to demand and get."

"Women are too humble."