e babies? And yet he said that there was no spur of necessity to
urge her on.

The worst of it was, she was beginning to be a doubter. She would not
own it, even to herself, but she was beginning to fear that he might be
mistaking the desire to be, for the power to be. What he considered his
best work invariably came back. He said that this was because editors
were unable to appreciate strikingly original ideas when they were
presented to them by a wholly unknown man. What they desired was a
commonplace, and when he said this, she--well, she said nothing. From
the first she had insisted on his reading aloud to her everything he
wrote. Unconsciously to herself she had become a critic. She was
beginning to fear that he was only at home in the lower levels. When he
soared, he floundered. It was only among the hacks that he held his own.
Even then, at times, he lagged behind. So far from hinting to him her
fears, she would almost rather have died than have allowed him to know
she had them. Their love for each other had never faltered, even when
their cupboard was emptiest. It had seemed to grow stronger with the
coming of each child. And, what is more, it appeared to her that, but
for him, she would have dropped into a ditch.

Lately there had been growing up within her a desire to add to the
family income. And, oddly enough, it had seemed to her that the best way
to do this would be by writing. She had hinted something of this desire
to Geoffrey. She had suggested, playfully, that she should join her pen
to his--that they should collaborate. He had received her playful
suggestion in such a way that she had not ventured to repeat it in
earnest. She knew him, through and through. She knew that he desired to
succeed, not only for himself, but, first of all, for her. He loved his
work for the work's sake. He cared nothing for fame in the sense of
popularity, or its equivalent, notoriety. In that respect he was a
clear-sighted man--he knew what the thing was worth. For himself he
cared nothing for the material products of success. His own tastes were
of the simplest kind. He desired to achieve success simply that he might
pour the fruits of success into her lap. He wished her to owe nothing to
anyone but to himself, to owe nothing even to her own self. He wanted to
be all in all to her, to have his love her beginning, and her end.

She knew this. Yet--the rent was overdue. Of late his manuscripts
seemed coming back worse than