e appeared at the door of their room;
she had not yet lowered the standard she had set for the ever-dainty
wife prepared to charm her lord.

"Hallo, kiddie!" said Osborn, his voice rather tired. "I'm awf'ly
hungry. Had a quick lunch. Is dinner ready?"

"No, it isn't," she replied sharply; "and what's more, it won't be for
another half-hour."

"Well, you might hurry it."

"I've been hurrying; I'm sick of hurrying, and sick of getting meals."

The door slammed. She swung round with raised eyebrows, hands up to
her hair, which she was dressing.

Osborn was gone. She heard him entering the bathroom noisily.

"Temper," she said aloud. "Temper!"

There was a big blank wall, ugly, insurmountable, cutting right across
the garden of married life.

CHAPTER VIII

BABY

Marie awoke Osborn very early on a September morning; she leaned upon
her elbow, gazing over to his bed, with terror in her eyes.

"Osborn," she gasped, "fetch the doctor! Telephone the nurse! The
time's come, and I'm so frightened. You won't leave me long? I can't
be left. Come back quickly and help me, Osborn.... I daren't stay
alone."

As Osborn ran, roughly dressed, and sick with fear, down the road to
the doctor's house, the irritations, the trials and domestic troubles
of the past half-year were swept away by comparison with this that
loomed infinitely greater. It had seemed to him, though he had borne
it more or less silently, very pitiable that a man, the breadwinner,
should ever come home weary of evenings to find his dinner not ready;
it had seemed to him sometimes, well as he had concealed the feeling
for the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of
the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate,
child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics
like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon
his pocket had been unexpected, pin-pricking sort of shocks. But all
this now receded; the hour was upon them, upon him, and the woman he
loved; what did a spoiled dinner matter? What did a fretful quarrel
matter, if only she won through? He begged the doctor's immediate
presence as a man begging life; but he himself hurried ahead, back to
Marie. When with trembling lips and trembling hands he had kissed and
caressed her, he lighted the fires in the flat, in the dining-room,
her bedroom, the bathroom geyser and the kitchen stove; he didn't know
what else to do, and he had va