But what did we know of each other?—­the real other?  True, we had danced together, been swimming together, dined together, played tennis together.  But what did we really know of each other’s whims and prejudices, opinions and personal habits and tastes?  I knew, to a word, what Jerry would say about a sunset; and he knew, I fancy, what I would say about a dreamy waltz song.  But we didn’t either of us know what the other would say to a dinnerless home with the cook gone.  We were leaving a good deal to be learned later on; but we didn’t think of that.  Love that is to last must be built upon the realization that troubles and trials and sorrows are sure to come, and that they must be borne together—­if one back is not to break under the load.  We were entering into a contract, not for a week, but, presumedly, for a lifetime—­and a good deal may come to one in a lifetime—­not all of it pleasant.  We had been brought up in two distinctly different social environments, but we didn’t stop to think of that.  We liked the same sunsets, and the same make of car, and the same kind of ice-cream; and we looked into each other’s eyes and thought we knew the other—­whereas we were really only seeing the mirrored reflection of ourselves.

And so we were married.

It was everything that was blissful and delightful, of course, at first.  We were still eating the ice-cream and admiring the sunsets.  I had forgotten that there were things other than sunsets and ice-cream, I suspect.  I was not twenty-one, remember, and my feet fairly ached to dance.  The whole world was a show.  Music, lights, laughter—­how I loved them all!

Marie, of course.  Well, yes, I suspect Marie was in the ascendancy about that time.  But I never thought of it that way.

Then came the baby, Eunice, my little girl; and with one touch of her tiny, clinging fingers, the whole world of sham—­the lights and music and glare and glitter just faded all away into nothingness, where it belonged.  As if anything counted, with her on the other side of the scales!

I found out then—­oh, I found out lots of things.  You see, it wasn’t that way at all with Jerry.  The lights and music and the glitter and the sham didn’t fade away a mite, to him, when Eunice came.  In fact, sometimes it seemed to me they just grew stronger, if anything.

He didn’t like it because I couldn’t go with him any more—­to dances and things, I mean.  He said the nurse could take care of Eunice.  As if I’d leave my baby with any nurse that ever lived, for any old dance!  The idea!  But Jerry went.  At first he stayed with me; but the baby cried, and Jerry didn’t like that.  It made him irritable and nervous, until I was glad to have him go. (Who wouldn’t be, with his eternal repetition of “Mollie, can’t you stop that baby’s crying?” As if that wasn’t exactly what I was trying to do, as hard as ever I could!) But Jerry didn’t see it that way.  Jerry never did appreciate what a wonderful, glorious thing just being a father is.