but
she had not broken with the old atmosphere completely, or if she had it
was still not believed that she had. There were those who could not
only charge, but prove. A compromising note of some kind sent to some
one was involved, turned over to Peter.

"Dreiser," he growled as he related the case to me, "it serves me right.
I ought to know better. I know the kind of woman I need. This one has
handed me a damned good wallop, and I deserve it. I might have guessed
that she wasn't suited to me. She was really too free--a life-lover more
than a wife. That home stuff! She was just stringing me because she
liked me. She isn't really my sort, not simple enough."

"But you loved her, I thought?"

"I did, or thought I did. Still, I used to wonder too. There were many
ways about her that troubled me. You think I'm kidding about this home
and family idea, but I'm not. It suits me, however flat it looks to you.
I want to do that, live that way, go through the normal routine
experience, and I'm going to do it."

"But how did you break it off with her so swiftly?" I asked curiously.

"Well, when I heard this I went direct to her and put it up to her. If
you'll believe me she never even denied it. Said it was all true, but
that she was in love with me all right, and would change and be all that
I wanted her to be."

"Well, that's fair enough," I said, "if she loves you. You're no saint
yourself, you know. If you'd encourage her, maybe she'd make good."

"Well, maybe, but I don't think so really," he returned, shaking his
head. "She likes me, but not enough, I'm afraid. She wouldn't run
straight, now that she's had this other. She'd mean to maybe, but she
wouldn't. I feel it about her. And anyhow I don't want to take any
chances. I like her--I'm crazy about her really, but I'm through. I'm
going to marry little Dutchy if she'll have me, and cut out this
old-line stuff. You'll have to stand up with me when I do."

In three months more the new arrangement was consummated and little
Dutchy--or Zuleika, as he subsequently named her--was duly brought to
Newark and installed, at first in a charming apartment in a
conventionally respectable and cleanly neighborhood, later in a small
house with a "yard," lawn front and back, in one of the homiest of home
neighborhoods in Newark. It was positively entertaining to observe
Peter not only attempting to assume but assuming the role of the
conventional husband, and exactly nine months af