lf as Martin's wife, living with him in all the
daily intimacies of marriage; she found that her mind, here, turned
swiftly away to their mental association. It was always Jerry she saw
shaving, Jerry she heard singing in his bath. She could not manage the
transfer successfully at all, she found.

Then she tried to conceive of her life devoid of Martin. If she were
still married to Jerry, and Martin was gone for good, what then? It
seemed like saying "could you be comfortable without your right hand?"

Some days she bitterly regretted the death of the unknown Mrs.
Christiansen which had precipitated this climax. It was so much easier,
the old way, with Jerry and Martin both in her life. Again she was glad
it had all turned out so, glad that Martin loved her, wanted her. Glad
that she had to face a decision about Jerry.

There was one unescapable knot, no matter how she untangled the skein.
She could not argue away the baby. He constituted Jerry's biggest hold
upon her. For if Jerry had not given her love, he had given her
something in its place which had aroused the one great passion in her
nature. She loved Jerry Jr. with every throb of her heart.

Wasn't this mother love enough? It had filled her life so far. It was,
with Jane, fierce and absorbing. Man and woman love had so many
elements, so many complexities, such possibilities of tragedy and
sorrow. Would she not better cling to what she had and let the rest go
by? So she told herself one day, only to cry out the next: "No, no; that
is the old nun Jane! I want it all--all."

Divorce was ugly to her. She forced herself to vision all its details.
Explanations to their friends--arrangements about the child. She
computed its effect upon little Jerry, torn between loyalty to his
father and his mother, spending his time, now with one parent, now with
the other. Growing up to a contempt for marriage, perhaps, or worse yet,
contempt for his mother and father who publicly admitted their failure
to keep their contract.

She tried to get Jerry's point of view in the situation by reversing it.
Suppose that Jerry had told her that he wished his freedom, in order to
marry Althea. How would she have met that demand? It gave her a pang to
think of going away, with Baby, to some strange place, to try to make a
new life for themselves. There would still be Martin in her life; who
would be left to Jerry, if she left him? Would he turn to Bobs, who
still loved him? She knew he w