"I'm sorry," she replied with a convincing gentleness, "that I shouldn't care if you did go. I'd have the children."

"Do you mean they've been more to you than I have?"

"What haven't they been to me?" Her face was soft. "You can't think--you've never troubled to know--how kind children are."

"Once I was first with you."

She quoted with irreverent glee: "'And they that were first shall be last.'"

"You can laugh?"

"Thank God I can, at last."

"Supposing I did go--right now?"

She shrugged her shoulders slightly and the mauve shoulder straps again arrested him. She did not speak; but without her answer, whatever it would have been, he knew that he could not leave her; that he must always come back at last, longing for her arms.

Ten o'clock struck, and she looked up thoughtfully at the wedding-gift timepiece.

"I'm going to bed," she said. "Good night."

A dark rush of colour flooded his face. "You really mean--"

She nodded.

"Then," he almost whispered, "exactly how do we stand?"

"I'll keep house for you very capably and look after our children. You can leave me if you like, you know."

"God!" he groaned. "What are women made of?"

"Ordinary flesh and blood that gets tired and wants loving. Have you only just remembered to inquire?"

He ran after her along the corridor as she went swiftly to her room.

"Marie!" he prayed. "Relent! Marie, it'll be all so different now.

I've all this money; you could have what you wanted."

"I know it'll be different. But, you see, you've done something to me; you've killed all the love I had for you, drained it dry somehow.

There's none left. I just--I just--don't want you."

She left his hands and gained her door, leaving him standing; he could have followed her forcibly, but it would have been violation. He felt it and was frightened. Through his anger there broke this fear, the fear of further offending her. When she turned to ask naturally, "You'll turn out the lights?" he just nodded. His mouth was very dry.

He wheeled round abruptly, returning to the warm room they had just left.

The whole room seemed to bear her impress; the faintest perfume, almost too delicate to be definite scent, hung there; on the bureau the little stocking she was knitting adhered to the ball of wool, pierced thereto by the long needles. It looked homely, but it was not home. Something had happened, devastating home. He sat for awhile in a sunk posture of dejection, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.

"She'll come round," he assured himself presently.

Sentences isolated themselves from her burning speech and struck in his brain ... "if I had to ask for anything, you weren't kind about it; you just flung out of the place, leaving me all the worries. You never helped nor shared." ... "A year ago you left me, glad to go, and I thought my heart would break." ... "But I don't want you." ...

"If she knew," he thought restlessly, with Roselle in his mind, "it'd be different. I'd understand what's piqued her. But, as far as she knows, she's been no worse off than other men's wives."

Her joy over her restored teeth and hands surprised him; it seemed so freshly childish. "I'll own it's hard on women," he thought, "but what could I have done? What did she expect me to do?"

He was quivering, soft, vulnerable.

"Did I really mean--just that--to her and the kids? Just somebody coming in to grump and grumble...."

The fire died down while he sat there, but what matter? She was not lying awake for him. When the desire came to him to make one last appeal, he checked it.

"No," he told himself cautiously, "give her time--lots of it. She'll come round."

He began to rake out the ashes suddenly and methodically, to switch out the lights. And very soberly he went to the room where his small son lay asleep.

His entrance roused George.

"Are you going to sleep with me, Daddy?" he asked nervously.

"Yes, old son," Osborn replied as nervously as the child had spoken.

"I'll be very quiet in the morning, Daddy," said George.

"You needn't be, old boy," Osborn replied.

He sat down on the edge of George's bed, with a wish that someone of all his household, this child at least, should be glad to see him.

"We're going to be great pals," he stated, "aren't we?"

"Yes, Daddy," the child answered.

"Give me a kiss and say good night, then."

George obeyed dutifully. Osborn tucked him up and turned away. As he undressed he thought of the toys he would buy the children to-morrow.

CHAPTER XXIII

INDIFFERENCE

Marie met her husband serenely at the breakfast-table next morning.

She looked fair and fresh and had other things to do than to give him undivided attention. George and Minna were at table, behaving charmingly, though the baby, being yet at a sloppy stage, was taking her breakfast in the kitchen in deference to her father's return.

Osborn paid his family some attention and his newspaper none; and he appeared to be in no hurry to be off.

"My first morning back," he remarked; "I need hardly turn up punctually."

"I suppose," said Marie, with interest, from behind her coffee-pot, "that your work will be rather different."