t just every day for the everyday things, is
life worth while at all? Isn't a girl like me, in full possession of
her health, mistress of her own life, filling her own pocket, better
off than a girl like Marie who's married and lost it all?"

"_Are_ you?" he demanded, stirred enough to look right into
Julia's eyes; and he saw what deep eyes they were, and what sincere
trouble and question lay in them.

She fenced doggedly: "I don't see why Marie should be made wretched;
she's only twenty-six. Is she to have that kind of fuss every day of
her life?"

"She won't want a new perambulator every day, we'll hope."

"Oh ... don't be cheap! You know what I mean. Why can't men meet
domestic liabilities fairly and squarely with their wives? Why must
they be coaxed to look at a bill which they authorise their wives to
incur? Why is a man vexed because he's got to pay the butcher, when he
eats meat every day of his life?"

"Since you ask, my dear girl, I'll tell you. People are too selfish to
marry nowadays and make a good job of it. Most men always were; but
then women used to go to the wall and go unprotestingly. Now
something's roused them to jib. They're making the hell of a row. They
won't stand it; and nobody else can. So what's to be done?"

"Is this marriage?" Julia asked coldly.

"No," said Rokeby, "it's war."

"It ought not to be."

"What do you suggest?"

"N-nothing."

"Nor does anyone else," Rokeby stated.

They were through the first course, and he replenished her glass with
sparkling hock. "Eat, drink, and be merry," he counselled
lachrymosely, "for to-morrow we may be married."

"Never for me."

"That's rash. People are caught--oh! it's the very devil to keep out
of the net."

"What will be the end of things?"

"What things?"

"Marie's and Osborn's."

"My dear Miss Winter, you exaggerate. They'll shake down, and that's
all."

"Will they be happy?"

"You'll have to ask them that, later. But, you see, I know Osborn
Kerr, and he'll make the best of it like other people. I wish I could
convince you. Don't distress yourself over the normal troubles of
normal people."

But Julia still worried on: "She looked so white and tired to-day;
she'd been carrying that great baby about round the shops, and she's
not strong yet."

"Can't the baby stay peaceably at home?"

"Then she's got to stay too. Where she goes the baby must go. She's
given up going out at all except just for her marketing."

"W