She cared not who wept; as she had no faith, nor power for pity, so she had no tears.

She took Osborn Kerr into her hands.

She said idly, to pass the time, but softly, just as if there was some meaning behind the question: "What made you think there was anyone else, dear?"

He looked at her and spoke rather hoarsely, under the influence of the matter in hand: "Oh well; there might have been. Roselle, do you think you can love me?"

"I could," she answered. She assimilated the details of a near-by toilette. "But--"

"Don't let's have any 'buts.'"

She had no subtlety, only the power of making what she said subtle; and she said:

"I don't know that loving is wise."

Osborn was in her hands; thrown upon her mercy; a beggar for just so much as she cared to give. He answered:

"Who cares about wisdom? It's the only thing worth doing, anyway."

Roselle began pulling her fur coat up over her arms; it was past ten o'clock; and on Sundays she went to bed early, to counteract as far as might be the results of all the late nights during the week.

"Take me home," she demanded.

In the taxicab Osborn took her into his arms and began whispering to her things to which she did not listen; had he only known it, she was extremely sleepy from the effects of all the fresh air during the day, but triumphantly he took her inertia for the surrender for which he had, so suddenly, craved.

He was begging for that promise about Paris, but she would not give it. A month? What an age it was--any good thing might happen.

She would not let him come into the flat. "I'm too sleepy," she declared. She stood before him on the inner side of her threshold, with a faint smile on her face that was as pale as magnolia flowers, and her eyelids drooping heavily; she put out a lazy hand against his chest and warded off his entry. When she sent him away, he felt on fire, from the last look of her, thus.

CHAPTER XXVI

COMPREHENSION

When Marie had waved to her husband a stereotyped good-bye, and had kissed schoolboy George a warm one, on Monday morning, when leisurely quiet had come again to the flat, and as she still lingered over her newspaper, the door bell rang and Mrs. Desmond Rokeby was admitted.

Julia--fresh, heavenly, without a frown, without a care, without a regret--blew into Number Thirty like a Christmas rose and clasped Marie in a glad embrace.

"It's early; it's shockingly early, but I came up with Desmond this morning and knowing your habits--you _do_ still wheel your own perambulator on the Heath, don't you, at eleven-thirty?--I rushed here first."

"How splendid you look!"

"I feel splendid!" The two women stood at arm's length, eyeing each other inquisitively and frankly, and Julia's ingenuous blush was the reflection of a divine dawn.

She sat down, put her feet on the fender, loosened her furs.

"I may stay and talk?"

"May you _not_! Oh! I'm glad to see you--it seemed as if your honeymoon was going to last for ever."

"It's not over."

"That's what we all say."

"Don't be cynical, dear," said the new Julia.

Marie waved this away with a brief laugh. "I want all your news," she demanded. "Where are you living? What are your plans? What's the house like, and where did you get your furniture?"

"We've got a wee house, the dearest thing, near Onslow Gardens, and we've not finished furnishing yet; we're proceeding with it this afternoon. I'm lunching with Desmond, and then we're going furnishing together. Desmond loves it."

"And you--you're happy?"

"Oh, Marie! I was never so happy in my life."

The baby rose from its play at the other side of the dining-room, and, tottering to her mother, begged to be lifted upon her lap.

"I only want one of _those_," said Julia, regarding the mite.

"That will come," Marie replied with a forced gaiety.

"Desmond took me for a motoring honeymoon," said Julia. "As you know, we had made no plans. There wasn't time. At least, _I_ hadn't, but it seemed he'd got them all mapped out in his head, the wicked thing! We had a simply lovely time, and coming home is lovelier. I adore pottering round a house, arranging this and that, and ordering the dinner."

"_You_ enjoy it?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"But you hated the domestic life; you were always up in arms at the thought of marriage; you loathed even hearing of a wedding. You used to talk of slavery ... don't you remember?"

"Ah, but--that was before I married."

"Then, what do you think now?"

"It's the only life," Julia stated with final conviction. "It's meant for us all; we were made for it; and we're never truly happy otherwise. Desmond and I have talked over all these things, and I understand a lot which I didn't understand before."

Marie stroked the baby's curly head without replying; she held its feet in her hand, and caressed them, and patted its small fat legs, and coaxed a gurgle from it. But even while the baby ravished her heart, the heart was busy with the bride before her and the bridal raptures which she had known, only to lose upon the wayside where so many bridal raptures lie dead and dying; outworn and weary. Tears to which she had long been a stranger rose in her eyes, and formed one of those big hurtful lumps in her throat, so that she would not trust her voice to Julia's ears.

That dreadful softness of longing--she had thought she would never know it again, never more be covered with it like a shore beneath the inward flow of the sea.

"Desmond wants to meet Osborn," said Julia. "He rang him up on Saturday morning, but he was engaged. Won't you and your husband come to dinner with me and my husband one evening at Onslow Gardens?"

Julia uttered the words "my husband" with a pleasure which she could not secrete from the eyes of Marie. Had she not known it, too? Had she not once delighted in saying, "My husband thinks." ... "My husband says." ... "My husband does...." simply for the crass joy of hearing the sound?

Julia went on:

"When can it be? Let's fix a date early. Do, there's a dear! There'll be a peculiar joy to Desmond and me in having in our own house Osborn and you, the very two people who always told us the truth about marriage, and urged us to go and do likewise!"