but had stopped on the way home
to get six enormous oranges in a paper bag. The heat had given her a
stupid headache, and she felt limp and tired. It was delicious to
undress, to climb into the smoothed bed, and to sink back against the
pillows.

A bulky newspaper, smelling of printer's ink, was on the chair beside
her bed, but Martie did not open it for a while. Serious thoughts held
her. Opening her orange, she said to herself, with a little flutter at
her heart, that it must be so. She was going to have a baby!

Fear and pride shook her. It seemed a tremendous thing; not at all like
the other babies other women had been having since time began. She
could not believe it--of herself, Martie Monroe, who had been an
ignorant girl only a few months ago!

Yet she had been vaguely suspecting the state of affairs for more than
a week; when morning after morning found her languid and weary, when
Wallace's fork crushing an egg-yolk had given her a sudden sensation of
nausea. She felt so stupid, so tired all the time. She could not sleep
at night; she could hardly stay awake in the daytime.

Her eyes were heavy now. She glanced indifferently at the newspaper,
smiled a contented little smile, and, murmuring, "I wonder--I wonder--"
and fell into delicious sleep.

She slept for a long time. Wallace, coming in at two o'clock, awakened
her. Afternoon sunlight was streaming into the room, which was scented
with the decaying sweetness of orange peel. Dazed and stupid, yet
dreamily content, Martie smiled upon him. He hated Sunday rehearsals:
she could see that he was in a bad mood, and his obvious effort to
think of her and to disguise his own feeling touched her.

"Tired?" she asked affectionately. "Isn't it hot?"

"How are you?" Wallace questioned in turn. "You felt so rotten
yesterday."

He sat down beside her, and pushed the dark hair from his big forehead,
and she saw that his face was damp and pale.

"Fine!" she assured him, laying her hand over his.

They remained so for a full minute, Wallace staring gloomily at
nothing, Martie's eyes idly roving about the room. Then the man reached
for a section of the paper, glanced at it indifferently, and flung it
aside.

"There wasn't any rehearsal this morning," he observed after a pause.
He cleared his throat self-consciously before speaking and Martie,
glancing quickly at him, saw that he intended the statement to have a
significance.

"Where were you then?" she asked d