d go to his club?

"You'd better get the dinner," he suggested, after a time, turning
toward her irritably; but he did not feel so distant as he looked. It
was a shame that life could not be more decently organized. He
strolled back to his lounge, and Jennie went about her duties. She was
thinking of Vesta, of her ungrateful attitude toward Lester, of his
final decision never to marry her. So that was how one dream had been
wrecked by folly.

She spread the table, lighted the pretty silver candles, made his
favorite biscuit, put a small leg of lamb in the oven to roast, and
washed some lettuce-leaves for a salad. She had been a diligent
student of a cook-book for some time, and she had learned a good deal
from her mother. All the time she was wondering how the situation
would work out. He would leave her eventually--no doubt of that.
He would go away and marry some one else.

"Oh, well," she thought finally, "he is not going to leave me right
away--that is something. And I can bring Vesta here." She sighed
as she carried the things to the table. If life would only give her
Lester and Vesta together--but that hope was over.

CHAPTER XXXI

There was peace and quiet for some time after this storm. Jennie
went the next day and brought Vesta away with her. The joy of the
reunion between mother and child made up for many other worries. "Now
I can do by her as I ought," she thought; and three or four times
during the day she found herself humming a little song.

Lester came only occasionally at first. He was trying to make
himself believe that he ought to do something toward reforming his
life--toward bringing about that eventual separation which he had
suggested. He did not like the idea of a child being in this
apartment--particularly that particular child. He fought his way
through a period of calculated neglect, and then began to return to
the apartment more regularly. In spite of all its drawbacks, it was a
place of quiet, peace, and very notable personal comfort.

During the first days of Lester's return it was difficult for
Jennie to adjust matters so as to keep the playful, nervous, almost
uncontrollable child from annoying the staid, emphatic,
commercial-minded man. Jennie gave Vesta a severe talking to the first
night Lester telephoned that he was coming, telling her that he was a
very bad-tempered man who didn't like children, and that she mustn't
go near him. "You mustn't talk," she said. "You must