nough how not to annoy him.
If only she had not learned too late! What was it about Martin, she
wondered afresh, that had held her through all these deadening years?
Her love for him was like a stream that, disappearing for long periods
underground, seemed utterly lost, only to emerge again unexpectedly,
cleared of all past murkiness, tranquil and deep.

This unspoken converging of minds, equivocal though it was on Martin's
part, resulted gradually in a more friendly period. Rose always liked to
remember that winter, with its peace that quenched her thirsty heart and
helped to blur the recollection of old unkindnesses long since forgiven,
but still too vividly recalled. When, a year later, Billy was born, she
was swept up to that dizzy crest of rapture which, to finely attuned
souls, is the recompense and justification of all their valleys.

Martin watched her deep, almost painful delight, with a profound envy.
He had looked forward, with more anticipation than even he himself had
realized, to the thrill which he had supposed fatherhood would bring,
taking it entirely for granted that he would feel a bond with this small
reincarnation of his own being, but after the first week of attempting
to get interested in the unresponsive bundle that was his son, he
decided the idea of a baby had certainly signified in his mind emotions
which this tiny, troublesome creature, with a voice like a small-sized
foghorn, did not cause to materialize. No doubt when it grew into a
child he would feel very differently toward it--more as he did toward
little Rose, but that was a long time to wait, and meanwhile he could
not shake off a feeling of acute disappointment, of defeated hopes.

By the end of the second month, he was sure he must have been out of his
senses to bring such a nuisance upon himself and into his well-ordered
house. Not only was his rest disturbed with trying regularity by night,
and his meals served with an equally trying irregularity by day, but he
was obliged to deal with an altogether changed wife. For, yielding as
Rose was in all other matters, where Billy was concerned she was simply
imperturbable. At times, as she held the chubby little fellow to her
breast or caught and kissed a waving pink foot, she would feel a sense
of physical weakness come over her--it seemed as if her breath would
leave her. Martin could be what he might; life, at last, was worth its
price. With the courage of her mother-love she could res