Theodora clasped her hands at the back of her head and began to pace the floor.  Her step was as free and lithe as that of an active boy; and her pale gown brightened the color in her cheeks and in the glossy coils of her hair.  Her husband looked up at her proudly.  They had been comrades before they had been lovers; and, from the day of their first meeting to the present hour, his admiration and his loyalty had been boundless and unswerving.  Suddenly she paused before him.

“William,” she said; “I am lazy, utterly lazy.  It is so good to be at home again and keeping house all by our two selves that I want to enjoy myself for a space.  For a month, a whole month longer, I am going to play and have the good of life.  Then I shall shut myself up and say farewell to the world while I create a masterpiece that will rend your heart and your tear glands.  Only,” she dropped down on a footstool beside him; “only I do hope that Allyn and Babe will return to their wonted habits, and that this new cook will learn that one doesn’t usually mash macaroni before bringing it to the table.  If it were not for the souls and the digestions of our families, Billy, we could all produce great works.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Theodora Farrington’s saving grace lay in her sense of humor.  It had saved her from many dangers, from none more insidious than that lurking in five years’ experience as a successful author.  It had rescued her from the slough of despond when unappreciative publishers rejected her most ambitious attempts; it had come to her aid also when a southern admirer whose intentions were better than his rhetoric, sent her a manuscript ode constructed in her honor.  She had won success in her profession; but she had won it at the expense of some hard knocks.  But, however much the world might be awry, two people had never lost faith in her talent.  To her father and her husband, to their encouragement and their belief in her future, Theodora owed her best inspiration.

For the past year, she had forsaken her inky way and given herself up to a well-earned rest, wandering from Mexico to Alaska and back again to Helena.  Now that she was settled in her home once more, the spirit of work was lacking.  Theodora was domestic, and she found it good to take up her household cares again, so for a month after her return she turned a deaf ear to her publisher while she and her husband revelled in their coming back to humdrum ways much as a pair of children play at housekeeping.  Then Theodora’s conscience asserted itself, with the discouraging result that she became undeniably cross and, over his paper of an evening, Billy watched her in respectful silence.  Past experience had taught him what this portended.

Two days later, Theodora came to luncheon with unruffled brow.  Across the table, her husband looked at her inquiringly.

“Under way, Teddy?”

“Yes, at last.”