e should
speak for the next time, or move her eyes around to his face--was the
critical moment of her life. She had, for just this moment, a choice of
two things to say when next she should speak--a choice of two ways of
looking into his face. A mountaineer, standing on the edge of a
crevasse, deciding whether to try to leap across and win a precarious
way to the summit, or to turn back and confess the climb has been in
vain, is confronted by a choice like that. If ever the leap was to be
made, it must be made now. The rainbow bridge across the crevasse, the
miracle of motherhood, had faded like the mist it was composed of.

She was a mother now. Yet her relation to her husband's life was the
same as that of the girl who had gone to his office the night of the
Randolphs' dinner. And no external event--nothing that could _happen_ to
her (remember that even motherhood had "happened" in her case) could
ever transmute that relation into the thing she wanted. If the alchemy
were to be wrought at all, it would be by the act of her own will--at
the cost of a deliberately assumed struggle. There was nothing, any
more, to hope from waiting. The thing that whispered, "Wait!
To-morrow--some to-morrow or other, it may be easier! Wait until, for
yourself, you've thought out the consequences,"--that was the voice of
cowardice. If she turned back, down the easier path, to-night, it must
be under no delusion that she'd ever try to climb again, or find a pair
of magic wings that would carry her, effortless, to what she wanted.

Well, then, she had her choice. One of two things she might do now. It
was in her power to look up at him and smile, and say: "All right,
Roddy, old man, I'll stop being disagreeable. I won't have any more
whims." And she could go to him and clasp her hands behind his head and
feel the rough pressure of his cheeks against the velvety surfaces of
her forearms, and kiss his eyes and mouth; surrender to the embrace she
knew so well would follow.

She could make, after a fashion, a life of that. She had no fear but it
would last. Barring incalculable misfortunes, she ought to be able to
keep her looks and her charm for him, unimpaired, or but little
impaired, for twenty years--twenty-five, with care. For the rich, the
resources of modern civilization would almost guarantee that. Well,
twenty-five years would see Rodney through his fifties. She needn't,
barring accident, have any more children. He'd probably be cont