“I despise men.”

“Oh, don’t say that, like Miss Winter.  I never did approve of that girl.”

“She’s wiser than I. She won’t marry.”

“I guess she hasn’t had the chance,” said Mrs. Amber, with the disbelief of the old married woman in spinster charms.

“Oh, yes, she has, mother.  She’s had several chances.  But she knows when she’s lucky; she’s her own mistress, and she has her own money and her freedom.”

“She’s missing a great deal; and some day she’ll know it.”

“She knows it now, thank you.  She knows she’s missing illness and pain and poverty and worry, and the whims and fancies and bad tempers of a husband.”

Mrs. Amber said soothingly:  “Now, now, my dear, you’re not yourself, or you wouldn’t say such things.  It’s every woman’s duty to marry if she can and have children.  As to your husband, it’s no use expecting anything of men but what you get; and the sooner you realise it, my love, the happier you’ll be.”

“I’ll never realise it!” Marie fired.

“Then you’ll never settle down contentedly as you ought to.”

“Why ought I, mother?”

“Because there’s nothing else to be done,” replied Mrs. Amber sensibly.

“You’re right there,” Marie moaned, with her forehead against the chair back, “there’s nothing else to be done.”

“What does Osborn say now about a second baby?”

“He doesn’t know.”

Mrs. Amber paused and thought before she said:  “You ought to tell him at once, my dear.  It’s possible—­he might be pleased.”

“He’ll be anything but pleased.  I dread telling him.”

“Oh, my duck!” said Mrs. Amber helplessly.

Marie enumerated:  “He’ll hate the expense, and the worry, and my illness, and the discomforts he’ll have while I’m ill.  He’ll hate everything.”

“Men do, of course, poor things,” Mrs. Amber commented with sympathy.

“Poor things!” Marie flared.  “I’d like to—­”

“No, you wouldn’t like to do anything unkind, love.  And when you’ve got your dear little new baby you’ll love it, and be just as pleased with it as you are with George.  You will, my dear; there’s no gainsaying it, because we women are made that way.”

“I know,” said Marie very sorrowfully.

Mrs. Amber regarded her knitting thoughtfully, then she dropped it to regard her daughter thoughtfully.  She rose and shut the windows against the now chill night air of October, and drawing the curtains, made the room look cosy.  She looked at the fire laid ready in the grate, but unlighted, and puckered her eyebrows doubtfully.

“The dining-room fire isn’t lighted either, is it, duck?”

“No mother.  When Osborn goes out in the evenings, I don’t light one just for myself after these warm days.”

“You should, my love.  Really you should make yourself more comfortable.”

“Now, mother, I’m sure you never lighted fires for yourself when father was out, unless it was to keep all the pipes in the place from freezing solid.  I’m sure you screwed and skimped and saved and worried along, as all we other fools of women do.”