another one plucked him easily from her side!... Women were cheated
always in the game of life because of their hearts, fated unfairly in
the primal scheme of things. Marion Reddon knew--she probably had had
_her_ experiences. But at least she had the child.

On that note her heart became centred, and she hurried back to the hotel
and began aimlessly to gather her clothes together and throw them into
the trunks. She must take her child and leave at once. She did not want
to see him again.... But where should she go--how? Jack always arranged
everything for her: she couldn't even make out a time-table or buy a
railroad ticket. Marriage had made her dependent--she would have to
learn.

At this moment Bragdon entered the room. His face still wore the stern
expression she had noted, which gave him the look of age.

"What are you doing?" he demanded abruptly.

"Don't you see--packing!"

"What for?... I've cabled home for more money--I'm going to stay here
and paint."

She thought swiftly to herself that the Other had persuaded him to do
what he had refused to do for her. She made no reply, but continued to
put things blindly into the trunk.

XI

CRISIS

When two human beings--above all when man and wife--meet at such tense
moments, one of Virgil's beneficent clouds should descend upon them,
hiding all, and they should be wafted apart to remote places, there to
abide until once more a sense of the proportion and the harmony in this
mundane system has taken possession of them, and they have become, if
not gods and goddesses, at least reasonable human beings. The least the
historian can do under the circumstances is to imitate Virgil and draw a
merciful veil between the cruel battle-field and all profane eyes. The
more so as few of the hot words then uttered, the sharp agony displayed,
the giving and the baring of wounds have any real effect upon the
result. What is done counts, and that is about all, always.

It might be that afterwards Milly derived some deeper understanding of
herself, of her husband, and of the married way of life from the agony
she then experienced. It might be that the young artist, headstrong in
his first triumphant mastery, the first achievement of his whole being,
entertained, for some moments at least, the idea of cutting the knot
then and there and taking his freedom which he had surrendered at the
altar, choosing what might seem to him then spiritual life instead of
prolonged