just one
little thing. Lots and lots of the working-women of Endbury live with
their families in two or three rooms right on that horrid Main Street
near their work because they can't afford _carfares_!"

Lydia looked at her without speaking. She remembered her futile,
desperate, foolish proposition to Paul to get more time together by
living near his work. With a roar, the flood of her bewilderment,
diverted for a time, broke over her again. She braced herself against
it. Through her companion's dimly-heard exhortations that, from her high
heaven of self-indulgence, she stoop to lend a hand to her less favored
sisters, she repeated to herself, clinging to the phrase as though it
were a magic formula: "If I can only wish hard enough to make things
better, nothing can prevent me."

The telephone bell rang, and Miss Burgess interrupted herself to say:
"It's for me, I know. I told them at the office to call me up here." She
got herself out of the room in her busy way, her voice soon coming in a
faint murmur from the far end of the hall.

Lydia walked to the window to call Ariadne in to put on a wrap, the
thought and action automatic. She had buttoned the garment about the
child's slender body before she responded again to the little living
presence. Then she took her in a close embrace. With the child's breath
on her face, with her curls exhaling the fresh outdoor air, there came
to pass for poor Lydia one of the strange, happy mysteries of the
contradictory tangle that is human nature. She had felt it often with
Paul after one of their long separations--how mere physical presence can
sometimes bring a consolation to the distressed spirit.

As she held her child to her heart, things seemed for a moment quite
plain and possible. Why, Paul was Ariadne's father! As soon as he was
with her again, all would be well. It must be. Nothing could separate
her from the father of her baby! They were one flesh now. There was
still all their lifetime to grow to be one in spirit. She had only to
try harder. They had simply started on a false track. They were so
young. So many years lay before them. There was plenty of time to turn
back and start all over again--there was plenty of time to--

"Oh, my dear! my dear!" Miss Burgess faltered weakly into the room and
sank upon a chair.

Lydia sprang up, Ariadne still in her arms, and faced her for a long
silent instant, searching her face with passion. Then she set the little
girl down