* * * * *

The trip by trolley with my husband and Grace Draper through the beautiful country lying between Jamaica and Hempstead will always remain in my memory as a turning point in my ideas of matrimony and its problems.

Lillian Underwood’s talk with me had destroyed all my previous conceptions of dignified wifely behavior in the face of a problem like mine.

So all during the journey home through the fragrant September air, I paid as much attention to my role of calm friendliness as any actress would to a first night appearance.  Remembering Lillian’s advice to make the transition gradual from the frigid courtesy of my former meetings with Grace Draper to the friendly warmth we had planned for our campaign, I adopted the manner one would use to a casual but interesting acquaintance.

I kept the conversational ball rolling on almost every topic under the sun.  But I found that the burden of the talk fell on my shoulders.  The girl was plainly uneasy and puzzled at my manner.  Dicky’s thoughts I could not fathom, I caught his eyes fixed on me once or twice with admiration and a touch of bewilderment in them, but he said very little.

It was a wonderful night; warm, with the languor of September, fragrant with the heavy odors of ripening fruit and the late autumn blossoms.  There was no moon, but the long summer twilight had not yielded entirely to the darkness and the stars were especially bright.

A night for lovers, for vows given and returned, it was this, if ever a night was.  What a wonderful journey this would have been for me if only this other woman was not on the other side of my husband!  Then with savage resentment I realized that she might also be thinking what possibilities the evening would have held for her if I had not been a third on the little journey.

Whatever Dicky was thinking I dared not guess.  Whatever it was, I was sure that his thoughts were not dangerously charged with emotion as were mine and Grace Draper’s.  I was fiercely glad of his irresponsibility for the first time.

“Come on, girls.  Here’s Crest Haven.  I’ve got a brilliant idea.  We’ll get one of these open flivvers they have at the station and motor to Marvin luxuriously.  Beats waiting for the train all hollow.”

I opened my lips to protest against the extravagance, then closed them without speaking, flushing hotly at the danger I had escaped.  Nothing would have so embarrassed Dicky and delighted Miss Draper as any display of financial prudence on my part.

“Oh, Mr. Graham, how wonderful!” Miss Draper gave the impression of finding her voice mislaid somewhere about her, and deciding suddenly to use it.  “This is just the night for a motor ride.”

Her voice matched the night, cooing, languorous, seductive.  I knew if she had voiced her real thoughts she would have willed that I be dropped anywhere by the roadside, so that she might have the enchanting solitude of the ride with Dicky.