is,
if you haven't changed your mind about being on the stage; a position
that will have more hope and promise in it. I want you to feel that
we're--with you."

"Who are 'we'?" She accompanied that question with a straight look into
his eyes; the first since they had sat down across this table.

"Why," he said, "the only two people I've talked with about
it--Frederica and Harriet. I thought you'd be glad to know that they
felt as I did."

The first flash of genuine feeling she had shown, was the one that broke
through on her repetition of the name "Harriet!"

"Yes," he said, and he had, for about ten seconds, the misguided sense
of dialectical triumph. "I know a little how you feel toward her, and
maybe she's justified it. But not in this case. Because it was Harriet
who made me see that there wasn't anything--disgraceful about your going
on the stage. It was her own idea that you ought to use your own name
and give us a chance to help you. She'll be only too glad to help. And
she knows some people in New York who have influence in such matters."

During the short while she let elapse before she spoke, his confidence
in the conviction-carrying power of this statement ebbed somewhat,
though he hadn't seen yet what was wrong with it.

"Yes," she said at last, "I think I can see Harriet's view of it. As
long as Rose had run away and joined a fifth-rate musical comedy in
order to be on the stage, and as long as everybody knew it, the only
thing to do was to get her into something respectable so that you could
all pretend you liked it. It was all pretty shabby, of course, for the
Aldriches, and in a way, what you deserved for marrying a person like
that. Still, that was no reason for not putting the best face on it you
could.--And that's why you came to find me!"

"No, it isn't," he said furiously. His elaborately assumed manner had
broken down, anyway. "I came because I couldn't help coming. I've been
sick--sick ever since that night over the way you were living, over the
sort of life I'd--driven you to. I've felt I couldn't stand it. I wanted
you to know that I'd assent to anything, any sort of terms that you
wanted to make that didn't involve--this. If it's the stage, all
right.--Or if you'd come home--to the babies. I wouldn't ask anything
for myself. You could be as independent of me as you are here...."

He'd have gone on elaborating this program rather further but the look
of blank incredulity in her face sto