hey are expected to. But suppose you have good
luck and manage it. Then where are you? Out in the woods somewhere at
the beginning of winter, just when you ought to be settled comfortably
somewhere in town.

"Oh, I know it's all very poetic, sitting in front of a roaring fire of
logs, while the wind bangs the shutters, and that sort of thing, Rose
singing to the baby and all. But you're not an Arcadian one bit. Neither
is she, really, and you'll simply perish out there, both of you, and be
back in town before the holidays.

"Rose oughtn't to be in town this summer. But she'll have to be to put
this through. She ought to be down at York Harbor, or one of those Cape
Cod places, instead of in this horrible smoky hole. Because she's not so
very fit, really do you think? Bit moody, I'd say."

"But good lord, Harriet, we've got to get out of here anyway, in
October. And that means we've got to have some sort of place to get
into. It is an awkward time, I'll admit."

"No, you haven't," she said. "You can stay right here another six
months, if you like. I've heard from Florence. I met her in Paris in
April, and found she wasn't a bit keen to come back and take this house
on. Their securities have gone down again, and they're feeling hard-up.
Florence has got an old barn of an _atelier_, and she's puttering around
in the mud thinking she's making statuary. Well, when I found how things
stood here, I wrote and asked her if she'd lease for six months more if
she got the chance, and she wrote back and simply grabbed at it. All
you've got to do is to send her a five-word cable and you're fixed.
Then, next spring, when your troubles are over, and you know what you
want, you can look out a place up the shore and have the summer there."

Rodney smoked half-way through his pipe before he made any comment on
this suggestion.

"This house isn't just what we want," he said. "In the first place, it's
damned expensive."

Harriet shrugged her shoulders, found herself a cigarette and lighted
it; picked up one of Florence's poetry books and eyed the heavily tooled
binding with a satirical smile before she replied. She could feel him
looking at her, and she knew he'd wait till she got ready to go on.

"I'd an idea there was that in it," she said at last. "Freddy said
something ... Rose had been talking to her." Then after another little
silence, and with a sudden access of vehemence, "You don't want to go
and do a regular _fool_ thing,