ss of his generation, he had felt more than ever the
need of some intellectual outlet for the torrent of his imagination. As
a wife, Virginia was perfect; as a mental companion, she barely existed
at all. She was, he had come to recognize, profoundly indifferent to the
actual world. Her universe was a fiction except the part of it that
concerned him or the children. He had never forgotten that he had read
his play to her one night shortly after Jenny's birth, and she had
leaned forward with her chin on her palm and a look in her face as if
she were listening for a cry which never came from the nursery. Her
praise had had the sound of being recited by rote, and had aroused in
him a sense of exasperation which returned even now whenever she
mentioned his work. In the days of his courtship the memory of her
simplicities clung like an exquisite bouquet to the intoxicating image
of her; but in eight years of daily intimacy the flavour and the
perfume of mere innocence had evaporated. The quality which had first
charmed him was, perhaps, the first of which he had grown weary. He
still loved Virginia, but he had ceased to talk to her. "If you go into
the refrigerator, Oliver, don't upset Jenny's bottle of milk," she said,
looking after him as he turned towards the dining-room.

Her foot was already on the bottom step of the staircase, for she had
heard, or imagined that she had heard, a sound from the nursery, and she
was impatient to see if one of the children had awakened and got out of
bed. All the evening, while she had changed the skin-tight sleeves of
the eighties to the balloon ones of the nineties in an old waist which
she had had before her marriage and had never worn because it was
unbecoming, her thoughts had been of Harry, whom she had punished for
some act of flagrant rebellion during the afternoon. Now she was eager
to comfort him if he was awake and unhappy, or merely to cuddle and kiss
him if he was fast asleep in his bed.

At the top of the staircase she saw the lowered lamp in the nursery, and
beside it stood Harry in his little nightgown, with a toy ship in his
arms.

"Mamma, I'm tired of bed and I want to play."

"S--sush, darling, you will wake Jenny. It isn't day yet. You must go
back to bed."

"But I'm tired of bed."

"You won't be after I tuck you in."

"Will you sit by me and tell me a story?"

"Yes, darling, I'll tell you a story if you'll promise not to talk."

Her eyes were heavy with sle