painter." Most of them regarded Molly as the "bright little wife" of "a young artist."

"He hasn't exhibited much of late, has he?" asked Muriel. "But I used to know him very well-before he was your husband."

"It must have been," said little Mrs. Carroll demurely. She felt the usual sensations of a young wife confronted by a woman who had once known her husband "very well."

"No," she added, "he hasn't exhibited much of late. You see," she explained in the same quietly amused manner, "he has had to go back into illustrating, now that he has a destroyer on his hands."

Muriel laughed musically. "Such a delightful destroyer," she said as she turned to tell the next wife how glad she was to meet her. "Do look me up, Mrs. Carroll," she called after Molly. But Mrs. Carroll pretended not to hear and passed on.

And now having improved their minds, the other variously beautiful and expensive blights went on with life where they had left off before Muriel had told them what to do with it; perhaps a little more dissatisfied, but with no definite intention of modifying the lot to which fate had assigned them. It seemed that the new member, however, had come to a parting of the

THE young Carrolls had the potentialities of a very good partnership, and if they had not yet found themselves, it was not due to a lack of worthy ideals. Perhaps it was because of them.

With the pleasurable sense of "sacrificing a career" for love, Molly had thrown over her maiden dreams of "doing some thing" in order to "be something," a complete wife. That was the irony of it, she thought now, as she walked home, her brain in a whirl. She remembered the beaming approbation of the older generation when she made this announcement.

With the best of intentions it is difficult to be an old-fashioned wife in a new-fashioned apartment. The ideals of the former gen

eration seldom fit the conditions of the present generation-no wonder when they were evolved from the conditions of the former! Try as she might Molly could not make her ordinary housekeeping consume more than an hour and a half of her day. To be sure, she also did all the other orthodox things, so far as she was able. She darned Fred's socks. She even gave her bedroom furniture a fresh coat of white enamel with her own efficient young hands. "You see I haven't forgotten how to paint, Fred," and he answered with his delightful laugh as she knew he would and a kiss, as she hoped he would, which also was quite orthodox.

But she could not very well spin and weave, because spinning-wheels are horribly expensive, and Fred needed the only one they could afford in the studio for backgrounds for illustrations of stories about old-fashioned wives. If she had tried to brew simples of herbs in this refined apartment house, the other refined tenants would have complained of the odor, and the "South American generals" who guarded the refined glass-and-iron grille entrance would have mounted the stairs and put the Carrolls out.

Well, there is one old-fashioned function of wifehood, which modern improvements have not yet taken away from women, and that is child-bearing; though, to be sure, modern industrial improvements have made child-rearing pretty expensive for men, especially such as are foolish enough to earn a livelihood by the sweat of their own faces, not those of employees. The young Carrolls had talked a good deal about how they were going to bring up their children. They talked about it no longer. . . .

So as Molly could not very well sit still and wait all day in their "little home" to meet Fred with a kiss, when he returned at nightfall, wearied with the cares of the day, she was forced to occupy herself outside the walls of her happy home, and with interests foreign to her husband's. What else was there for her to do? Fred did not want her in the studio, it was not in accordance with his inherited conception of a wife-a woman to set on high and worship, a divinity to come home and say one's prayers to, a helpmeet to share one's thoughts, one's life.

As time went on, however, he told her fewer of his thoughts, consulted her less

about his work. Naturally, since with the kindest intentions he had carefully put her out of both. She no longer understood. "Why trouble your little head about it?" became his attitude. She was his wife. She should be cherished and protected.

Then when he felt, with the supple sympathy of his sort, that she was conscious of a certain lack, he straightway declared, "When I lock my studio door I want to forget my work." Home, he said, was too hallowed to drag one's shop into it; the fireside was sacred, "even though it is asbestos," he added smiling. Her girlish ignorance, he decided, was quite charming; it was so feminine. For, your truly accomplished sentimentalist has adjustable ideals; when the stern facts do not fit them, make your ideals fit the facts. Women, he said, must just be a beautiful influence. You see, the psychic side is so much more developed in woman-fine thing, this psychic influence.

So, though better qualified than most wives to be a life partner as well as a love partner, she conscientiously stifled those aptitudes and became a "cunning little thing" instead. She had quaint amusing ways, was good at mimicry, a charming hostess, and her little dinners were famous. Being allowed no other function in their ménage than that of professional amuser, she accordingly spent the rest of the time in amusing herself. She lived very much as before marriage, except that then she had also exercised her mental faculties healthfully, and that now she enjoyed the added luxury of a husband who, though he no longer adored her, still adorned her to the best of his ability, regretting that he could not do it as well as she so richly deserved. In return she practised "vicarious leisure" for him, and vicarious maternity for a number of dirty children on the East Side.

This, surely, is an orthodox occupation for a lady. It was what Fred's mother and grandmother had done. He beamed approval at her unselfishness. He not only approved, but paid for it. He gradually abandoned precarious portrait-painting, and did pretty girls for the magazines, with straight noses and irreproachably smart clothes, so that his wife might improve her mind at a fashionable club, and the minds of other people's children in the

less fashionable quarters. Well, she had sacrificed her career for marriage, why should not he offer up a few sacrifices upon the same orthodox altar? It is a social institution, not an individualistic luxury, as the Muriels seem to think. Therefore they had no right to complain. They uttered no word of complaint. For that matter, as time went on, they uttered fewer words of any kind. They still dressed for dinner in each other's honor, but there seemed to be less and less to say as they sat there, calling each other "My dear." . . .

Indeed, they seemed to be separated by the very thing that had brought them together, their difference in sex and all that it entailed in the way of custom, tradition and more or less worthy ideals. So long as that difference was the paramount attraction it arched the chasm between them, like a rainbow; but when this should evaporate, then the chasm only would be left. so at last there came for her the hour which she had always feared and half expected from the golden moment when the man she loved told her that he loved and wanted her. He loved her no longer. This he did not tell her, but she knew, and his boyish attempts to keep this knowledge from her and from himself were almost sweet in their awkwardness. He bestowed gifts upon her and thoughtful attentions, spent more money than he could afford. It used to be because he loved her; now because he did not.

Well, they still had mutual respect left, and even admiration. Would that have to to go too?

Now, though she still remained upon the high place he had made for her, the woman he admired most in all the world, it was not so easy to remain upon the high place he had made for himself! For instancethough still married to the woman he admired most in all the world-he was strangely moved to admire others, too, whom he had not married at all! And being very honest, he was apt to let them know it, after a manner he had long since abandoned forever. This would not do at all. For when you are lucky enough to find the one woman in the world, as he had done, God bless her, it is well known that ever afterward you are scarcely aware of the existence of any other women, except by their long hair and clothes. He had lived up to

this high ideal of himself and of true marriage quite confidently at first, bestowing only the most benign impersonally gallant attention upon all others, including certain others who had once known him well, and still knew him rather better, perhaps, than he knew himself. They refused to take him seriously as a completely married man, which hurt his feelings.

"You are suffering from a bad attack of matrimony," they told him smiling.

"You don't appreciate me," he replied, "but then you never did"-with such a sad reproachful look in his young eyes. This seemed only to amuse them the more. It was so discouraging.

Alas! he loved them all. He wanted them about. He liked them in the mass, as well as separately, a half a dozen at once, himself the centre, talking rapidly (about himself) while they beamed upon him, bringing out his best. All his life he had been a lover, beginning with a boundless passion for his kindergarten teacher who kissed him when he left her for other teachers, other loves. And now it looked as if he might always be!-a dreadful prospect for a man with a wife who trusted him and was entirely too nice to deceive! He had been led to suppose that when once your former loves all resolve themselves into one grand, enduring passion for a wife, then all your former faults and fickleness are shrivelled into nothingness by marriage, the great solvent, and you arise on the wings of true love to wondrous heights, a new, different, better man -and here he was the same old idiot after all.

Well, if the smouldering fires of youth flared up at times, one must put them out. Youth was past. He had had his fling. He was married now, owned, possessed, laid upon a shelf-which he had chosen for himself-and there he must remain, sighing occasionally for what might have been, making the best of what was, keeping out of mischief if possible, or, failing that, out of print; thus serving society, offering a good example to other young persons who in turn could also go blindly into marriage and find out for themselves --and likewise serve society. ..

Down this not-unfrequented path of cynicism their marriage was tending, had not his wife heard Muriel's lecture.

III

MOLLY was going to her husband's studio, something she rarely did. She had arrived at a decision, and being a woman of spirit she was determined to announce it without delay. She had decided that she could not for another day endure the indignity of being an economic nonentity! It was bad enough when your husband loved you, but when he did not-well, there could be just one thing worse than her present pitiable state, and that was her probable future state, after she had grown fat and stupid, let us say. So as she was of no use to him, and as she could not be an economic entity, not knowing how, she had decided to tell him in a friendly way that she was going home to her father. They could still talk as friends. They were friends. There were to be no hysterics. She would put it altogether on her own selfish grounds, for that was the way to manage Fred: if she tried to prove to him that she was wrecking his life, he would only laugh at her, take her in his arms and kiss her. The days of their unhallowed kisses were done.

Her peroration would be this: "Fred, would you share the income of any friend of yours, however large the income or dear the friend? Why, it is unthinkable to you. Well, so it is to me." Then she would say good-by-without any hysterics.

She was perfectly convinced that she was right. It was an irrational knot. It was better to untie it now, before the knot became fast with children. She was glad now, oh, so glad, that she had no children. She and Fred were free to separate. It was right to separate. It would be wrong not to.

It was half dark when she arrived at the studio building, so she knew that she would not interrupt anything more serious than the cleaning of his brushes.

But as it happened she did interrupt him, though not at work. It seems that he had finished his work, and there seated beside a pleasant open fire were her husband and a lady. It was Muriel Vincent.

She was making him a cup of tea while the driving rain beat upon the skylight overhead. Molly recognized one of the numerous tea services she had received as wedding presents. Fred was leaning back in a long, low chair rolling a cigarette with his deft fingers, and seemed to be quite con

tented with his lot. There was something in the mutual attitude of these two which suggested that the scene was as familiar to them as it was novel to Molly.

Fred, arising briskly for a lazy man, attempted an introduction, stopped, seeing that it was unnecessary, both women explaining why at once.

"I had no idea I was to have this good fortune so soon," sang Muriel easily. "Nor I," said Molly, frankly returning the look.

Muriel in the shadow smiled as she watched the girl's face. "A conventional little thing," she thought. "This will do her good." To Muriel all wives in good and regular standing were conventional little things.

Strangely enough, instead of the calm dignity with which Molly commanded the studio in her imaginary interview with her husband, she suddenly felt neither calm nor dignified, nor did she think for the moment of saying good-by forever. Nevertheless, she held herself in hand and played the game, pretty well for a conventional little thing who had had no experience with husbands who "disappear in private," as Muriel had put it in her lecture.

"How comfy you look," was what she said aloud to them, to herself she said, "I might have guessed it!"

"Won't you try this one?" said Fred, offering her a great, tall Italian chair quite as if she were a distinguished stranger. She had helped him bargain for that chair once when at Genoa. He brought a footstool, too. He seemed quite desirous of making her also "comfy."

"You are just in time," said Muriel, bending over the tea things.

"For what?" asked Molly with a smile.
"For tea," said Fred.
"Oh," said Molly.

"May I make you a cup?" asked Muriel. "Thanks, I've had my tea. I merely dropped in to escape the storm. Isn't it a dreadful storm?"

To this the others amicably agreed, and then there was a little pause, Muriel smiling with unseen relish. She loved this sort of thing, perhaps because she was a novelist. "Don't you think you'd better have another cup?" she asked.

"Do," urged Fred, "it's awfully good

tea."

"Strong or weak?" Muriel inquired. "Pray don't trouble," said little Mrs. Carroll, quietly seating herself at the table, "I can make it myself." This seemed eminently permissible. It was her own tea service. Muriel had not even been the donor of this wedding present. Hence Muriel did not object.

There was another little pause, which Muriel alone enjoyed.

"Where in the world is the sugar?" Molly asked her husband.

"I'll get it," said Muriel rising. "Please don't trouble," said Molly with an engaging smile, "Fred will find it."

"But I don't know where she keeps it," said Fred, and then he remembered too late that it is always best to think before speaking.

"Oh, I see," said Molly, and then, because she felt the crimson in her cheeks, began to laugh a little, for that seemed the only thing to do, and Fred laughed, too. Then Muriel, filling one of Molly's wedding presents with sugar, laughed most of all. They felt so much better then that they talked about other things; though they did not listen very attentively.

"May I show the head to Molly?" asked Fred with a sudden inspiration.

"Oh, you have been doing Mrs. Vincent's portrait?" Molly inquired.

It was an interesting study, and Molly said so. The brilliance was there, the superficial charm, the glitter-and a certain wistful desire for better things. Fred was not a bad psychologist, when he let himself go, and only felt. It was when he tried to think that he ran into trouble. Molly was not so much in awe of the celebrity after seeing Fred's view of her. Like so many who are impressive in public, she was not at all impressive in conversation. But she was dreadfully good looking, and Fred treated her with the easy assurance of old friendship, fondness may be.

"He knows me too well," said Muriel, gazing upon the canvas, with an interesting shrug. "It's a frightful exposé. I shall never let any one else see it." She rippled from one picturesque pose to another as she spoke. Molly watched her passively, thinking of many things, the lecture, for instance-" the grind-stone by day, the hearth-stone by night."

Fred was getting out other canvases.

"I once loved your husband madly," Muriel remarked with elaborate carelessness, "but he would have none of me."

"What atrocious taste," said Molly with a side glance at the portrait.

"I thought so at the time," Muriel replied. "But I don't now," she added, with an appreciative look at Molly.

Fred's young wife turned slowly and looked at Muriel with an air of calm, detached interest. "Dear me!" she said to herself, "she seems to think she can afford to be nice to me."

Muriel noted the look and her eyebrows shot up, as Molly turned away. She was somewhat taken aback. She was amused, but aroused. Fred displaying canvases against chairs and table legs, did not know that with two brief glances a gauntlet had been thrown down and taken up, and that he was the prize of contest.

"I must be going on," said Mrs. Carroll, fastening her gloves. "Good-by, my dear," to Fred. "So nice to have seen you," to Muriel. "I am at home on Wednesdays." "Thanks," said Muriel, a little surprised. For a conventional little thing, that was not a bad exit speech, thought Muriel, remembering her own invitation to call, unheeded by Molly at the club.

"Are you going to some place where you don't want me tagging on?" asked Fred. There was a quizzical smile on his wife's face as she said one little word, "Home." Muriel flashed a look of appreciation. "Won't you come, too?" Molly asked her, as Fred turned for his hat, as if quite accustomed to leaving Muriel in possession. Muriel shook her head. "Thanks," she said, going to the door with them, "I live here."

"Here?"

"In this building-across the hall." "Ah, yes." There was a faint breath of contempt in Molly's tone, which annoyed Muriel-the smug superiority of a wife.

Bidding their guest good-by in the cor

together, remarking upon the afterglow down the cañons of the cross streets, an effect they had often admired together, being one which everybody on coming to New York discovers afresh. It was especially fine now after the rain, so they discussed it animatedly while both thought of something else, and each knew what the other was thinking about. . . . And yet here was a pair who had a sense of humor -they often told you so.

IV

ALWAYS a fickle and variable thing is woman. Here were other excellent reasons for untying the irrational knotanother woman making tea for him, helping him in his work, brightening his monotonous existence, a beautiful woman, too! and Fred was a worshipper of beauty. Yet the knot was allowed to remain.

If to be an economic nonentity were bad enough when happily married, and still worse after a husband has lost interest in his wife, surely it was worst of all, an intollerable disgrace, when he has begun to show interest in one who wasn't his wife. Previously she had loved and respected him; now she was inclined to hate and despise him, and yet she wanted to cling to the unworthy deceiver forever instead of saying good-by for a corresponding period of time.

Somehow the vaunted sense of humor which the modern generation prates of so incessantly does not seem to help them when it is needed most. The important emotions do not stop to consult humor. They have their way with us quite as in the old days before the phrase was invented.

Little Molly was confronted by a force greater than herself, imperious and quite irrational. It was sweeping her off her feet in the insolent manner of the real things of life, few of which are conspicuously rational. What we think about them in our little minds is interesting to us, but of no great consequence to them. It is for some great purpose this oft-maligned instinct of jealousy persists along with its all-praised parent, love. Perhaps this girl would now awake and become a woman, perhaps she would even make a man of her husbandbut that depends!