self."

"But," she persisted with an effort, "I can help. I'm sure I can." There was no trace of the "baby" in her expression now; on the contrary, her face and her voice were those of an extremely intelligent young woman, serious without the dreary, posed solemnity that passes current for seriousness, but is mere humorless asininity. "I really know something about chemistry," she went on. "I liked it, and took the courses both at high school and at college. Last winter I won a prize for original work." His smile made her color. "I don't say that," she hastened to explain, "because I think I'm a wonderful chemist, but just to prove to you that I do know a little something—enough to be able to help in a humble sort of way."

His expression was still that of grown people when laughing at the antics of children, and concealing amusement behind a thin pretense of grave admiration. "Yes, I've no doubt you're clever at it," said he. "But a refined woman oughtn't to try to do the man sort of thing."

"But, dear, I'm not so superfine as you seem to think—and not altogether foolish." She glanced round the laboratory. "You don't know how at home I feel here. What a wonderful, beautiful equipment you have! Everything of the best—and so well taken care of! Dick, I want to be your—wife. As I watched you I realized I've got to fit myself for it. That is—of course, I always knew I'd have to do that—but now I know just what I must do."

"What a serious child it is!" he cried, pinching her cheek. It was delightful, this baby playing at "grown-up."

She laughed because she loved him and loved laughter; but she persisted. "Being wife to a man means a great deal more than looking pretty and making love."

"That's very dear and sweet," said he, in the same petting, patronizing way. "I'm content with you as you are. I don't want anything more." And he set about putting things away and locking up.

Quiet on her high stool, she struggled against a feeling of resentment, of depression. Her instinct was, as always, to hide her hurt; but it seemed to her that if she did, it would not get well, would get worse. "Dick," she began at last.

"Yes?" said he absently. "Come along, dear." And he lifted her down with a kiss.

She went out, waited for him while he locked the door. "Dick," she began again, as they walked along the path, "I don't want to be shut out of any part of your life, least of all out of the realest part. I want to be truly your wife."

No answer. She glanced up at him; obviously his thoughts were far away.

She slipped her arms through his. "Tell me what you're thinking about, dear."

"About that test I was making."

"What was it?"

"Oh, nothing. Is the house satisfactory? How do you like old Nanny?" As she did not answer, he looked down at her. "Why, what's the matter with my little sweetheart? Such a discontented expression!"

"Nothing—nothing at all," replied she, forcing a smile and steadying her quivering lip.

"I'm afraid those two days on the train——"

"Yes," she interrupted eagerly. "And I guess I'm hungry, too. That's very upsetting."

With a little forcing she kept up the semblance of good spirits through breakfast and until he was off to the laboratory again. Then she gave way to her mood—for it could be only a mood. With old Nanny as guide, she went through the house, through all its spacious solidly and stiffly furnished rooms. At every step Nanny had something to say of Miss Eudosia—how good Miss Eudosia had been, how Miss Eudosia kept everything as her mother had it before her, how particular Miss Eudosia had been. And when it wasn't Miss Eudosia it was Colonel 'Kill—that splendid-looking, terrible-looking old Achilles Vaughan; as a child she had decided that the awful god the family worshiped must look like Achilles Vaughan. Nanny talked on and on; Courtney's spirits went down and down. In one respect the house should have appealed to her—in its perfect order. For she had inherited from her mother a passion for order—an instinct that would have a neatly kept ribbon box almost as soon as she could talk, and had prompted her, long before she could talk distinctly, to cry if they tried to put on her a dress the least bit mussed or a stocking with a hole in it. But there is the order that is of life, and there is the order that is of death. This Vaughan order seemed to her to be of death. She felt surrounded, hemmed in, menaced by a throng of the Vaughan women of past generations—those women of the old-fashioned kind, thoughtless, mindless, cool, and correct and inane—the kind of women the Vaughan men liked—the kind Richard liked—"No—no. He does not like that kind!"

Assisted by Nanny and Mazie, she unpacked the trunks into drawers and closets. When the last box was empty, Jimmie took them down to the cellar. She was established—was at home. She and Dick were to have the same bedroom; he would use the big spare bedroom directly across the hall and its bath for dressing. It was all most convenient, most comfortable. But she could not get interested, could not banish the feeling that she would soon be flitting, that she was stranger, intruder here. And the last sweet days of the honeymoon kept recurring in pictured glimpses of their happiness of various kinds, all centering about love. How tender he had been, how absorbed in their romance—that wonderful romance which began ideally in a chance meeting and love at first sight. And now, just as she was getting over her deep-down shyness with him, was feeling the beginnings of the courage to be wholly her natural self, to show him her inmost thoughts, o release the tenderness, the demonstrativeness that had been pent up in her all her life—just as the climax of happiness was at hand—here was this shadow, this relegating her to the chill isolation and self-suppression and self-concealment of a pedestaled Vaughan wife. "He acts as if a woman were not like a man—as if I had no sense because I'm not tall, and don't go about in a frown and spectacles." And it depressed her still further to recall that his attitude had been the same throughout courtship and honeymoon—treating her as a baby, a pet, something to protect and shield, something of which nothing but lover's small talk was expected. She had liked it then; it seemed to fit in with the holiday spirit. "I gave him a false impression. It's my fault." To pretend to be infantile for purposes of a holiday of love-making is one thing; to have one's pretense taken as an actual and permanent reality—that was vastly different, and wearisome, and humiliating, and not to be permitted. "But," she reflected, "it's altogether my fault. And the thing for me to do is not to talk about it to him, but just quietly to go to work and make myself his wife—fit myself for it." A wonderful man she thought him; and it thrilled her, this high and loving ambition to be worthy of him, and not mere pendant and parasite as so many wives were content to be.

They were to go the scant half mile across the lake in the motor boat at noon and lunch at her old home. She was ready a few minutes before time, and started toward the Smoke House. Halfway she stopped and turned back. No, she could not interrupt him there again. His manner, unconscious, more impressive than any deliberate look or word, made her feel that the Smoke House was set in