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“Is an illicit affair like a gambling debt—demands stricter honor than the legitimate debt of matrimony, because it’s not legally enforced?

“That’s nonsense! I don’t care in the least for Erik! Nor for any man. I want to be let alone, in a woman world—a world without Main Street, or politicians, or business men, or men with that sudden beastly hungry look, that glistening unfrank expression that wives know——

“If Erik were here, if he would just sit quiet and kind and talk, I could be still, I could go to sleep.

“I am so tired. If I could sleep—”

CHAPTER 31

Their night came unheralded. Kennicott was on a country call. It was cool but Carol huddled on the porch, rocking, meditating, rocking. The house was lonely and repellent, and though she sighed, “I ought to go in and read—so many things to read—ought to go in,” she remained. Suddenly Erik was coming, turning in, swinging open the screen door, touching her hand.

“Erik!”

“Saw your husband driving out of town. Couldn’t stand it.”

“Well—You mustn’t stay more than five minutes.”

“Couldn’t stand not seeing you. Every day, towards evening, felt I had to see you—pictured you so clear. I’ve been good though, staying away, haven’t I!”

“And you must go on being good.”

“Why must I?”

“We better not stay here on the porch. The Howlands across the street are such window-peepers, and Mrs. Bogart—”

She did not look at him but she could divine his tremulousness as he stumbled indoors. A moment ago the night had been coldly empty; now it was incalculable, hot, treacherous. But it is women who are the calm realists once they discard the fetishes of the premarital hunt. Carol was serene as she murmured, “Hungry? I have some little honey-colored cakes. You may have two, and then you must skip home.”

“Take me up and let me see Hugh asleep.”

“I don’t believe—”

“Just a glimpse!”

“Well—”

She doubtfully led the way to the hallroom-nursery. Their heads close, Erik’s curls pleasant as they touched her cheek, they looked in at the baby. Hugh was pink with slumber. He had burrowed into his pillow with such energy that it was almost smothering him. Beside it was a celluloid rhinoceros; tight in his hand a torn picture of Old King Cole.

“Shhh!” said Carol, quite automatically. She tiptoed in to pat the pillow. As she returned to Erik she had a friendly sense of his waiting for her. They smiled at each other. She did not think of Kennicott, the baby’s father. What she did think was that some one rather like Erik, an older and surer Erik, ought to be Hugh’s father. The three of them would play—incredible imaginative games.

“Carol! You’ve told me about your own room. Let me peep in at it.”

“But you mustn’t stay, not a second. We must go downstairs.”

“Yes.”

“Will you be good?”

“R-reasonably!” He was pale, large-eyed, serious.

“You’ve got to be more than reasonably good!” She felt sensible and superior; she was energetic about pushing open the door.

Kennicott had always seemed out of place there but Erik surprisingly harmonized with the spirit of the room as he stroked the books, glanced at the prints. He held out his hands. He came toward her. She was weak, betrayed to a warm softness. Her head was tilted back. Her eyes were closed. Her thoughts were formless but many-colored. She felt his kiss, diffident and reverent, on her eyelid.

Then she knew that it was impossible.

She shook herself. She sprang from him. “Please!” she said sharply.

He looked at her unyielding.

“I am fond of you,” she said. “Don’t spoil everything. Be my friend.”

“How many thousands and millions of women must have said that! And now you! And it doesn’t spoil everything. It glorifies everything.”

“Dear, I do think there’s a tiny streak of fairy in you—whatever you do with it. Perhaps I’d have loved that once. But I won’t. It’s too late. But I’ll keep a fondness for you. Impersonal—I will be impersonal! It needn’t be just a thin talky fondness. You do need me, don’t you? Only you and my son need me. I’ve wanted so to be wanted! Once