eviving fervor. Her
gift, singling her out from other girls, was the explanation of those
unconquered spaces in her soul, spaces never destined for the foot of
any man, however dear. Genius, she had heard, was always celibate, and
her genius, or talent, lived on in her inviolate, a thing yet to be
reckoned with, yet to be appeased.

She had not written during her engagement, nor since her marriage. Not
that she had deliberately renounced her ambitions, but that her days
had been crowded with other things, with things that, for the time, she
thought more vital. Peter had remonstrated with her once or twice, but
to no avail, and when she went from the flurry of trousseau and wedding
to the more serious business of keeping house in the traditional
vine-clad cottage--Mrs. Caldwell having persisted in the wisdom of
separate establishments--he no longer protested at all. An industrious
young housekeeper and a blooming wife was obviously not to be condoled
with over thwarted aspirations. So certain unfinished manuscripts lay
forgotten in the bottom of Sheila's bridal trunk--forgotten, or at
least ignored--until the day when she fixed on them as the reason of
her vague discontent. Then she brought them forth with an eagerness
that was, perhaps, the best answer to her self-analysis. Of course she
had wanted to write; without knowing it, she must have wanted, for
months, to write! Oh, life _wasn't_ a bit of dull realism! It was a
fairy tale after all--a fairy tale of poems and novels, of gracious
publishers and an appreciative public!

She had never talked to Ted about her writing. Somehow she had always
been absorbed in his work, his ambitions. He had all the initiative
and enterprise that Shadyville, prior to his arrival, had lacked, and
his labors and successes had consumed not only his own time and
thoughts, but Sheila's as well. She admired his energy; she was
dazzled by the juggleries of his mediocre cleverness; she was proud to
help him. Like a strong, fresh wind he filled her world--and,
incidentally, he was a wind that blew away all the delicate cobwebs,
the gossamer filaments of her finer gift.

But now, for the first time since Ted's return to Shadyville, Sheila's
individuality rose up within her and claimed something for itself. She
had wanted to write--and she _would_ write. There was no reason why
she should not. Women, nowadays, were wives and artists also. Married
women had "careers" as often