Silently, with compressed lips, Martie might pass and repass him.  But the moment always came when he caught her and locked her in his arms.

“Martie, dearest!  I know how you feel—­I won’t blame you!  I know what a skunk and a beast I am.  What can I do?  How can I show you how sorry I am?  Don’t—­don’t feel so badly!  Tell me anything—­any oath, any promise, I’ll make it!  You’re just breaking my heart, acting like this!”

For half an hour, for an hour, her hurt might keep her unresponsive.  In the end, she always kissed him, with wet eyes, and they began again.

Happy hours followed.  Wallace would help her with the baby’s bath, with Teddy’s dressing, and the united Bannisters go forth for a holiday.  Martie, her splendid square little son leaning on her shoulder, the veiled bundle of blankets that was Margaret safely sleeping in the crib, her handsome husband dressing for “a party,” felt herself a blessed and happy woman.

Frequently, when he was not playing, they went to matinees, afterward drifting out into the five o’clock darkness to join the Broadway current.  Here Wallace always met friends:  picturesque looking men, and bright-eyed, hard-faced women.  Invariably they went into some hotel, and sat about a bare table, for drinks.  Warmed and cheered, the question of convivialities arose.

“Lissen; we are all going to Kingwell’s for eats,” Wallace would tell his wife.

“But, Wallace, Isabeau is going to have dinner at home!” It was no use; the bright eye, the thickened lips, the loosened speech evaded her.  He understood her, he had perfect self-control, but she could influence him no longer.  Mutinous, she would go with the chattering women into the dressing room, where they powdered, rouged lips and cheeks, and fluffed their hair.

“Lord, he is a scream, that boy!” Mrs. Dolly Fairbanks might remark appreciatively, offering Martie a mud-coloured powder-pad before restoring it to the top of her ravelled silk stocking.  “I’ll bet he’s a scream in his own home!”

Martie could only smile forcedly in response.  She was not in sympathy with her companions.  She hated the extravagance, the noise, and the drinking that were a part of the evening’s fun.  Wallace’s big, white, ringed hand touched the precious greenbacks so readily; here! they wanted another round of drinks; what did everybody want?

Wherever they went, the scene was the same:  heat, tobacco smoke, music; men drinking, women drinking, greenbacks changing hands, waiters pocketing tips.  Who liked it? she asked herself bitterly.  In the old days she and Sally had thought it would be fun to be in New York, to know real actors and actresses, to go about to restaurants in taxicabs.  But what if the money that paid for the taxicabs were needed for Ted’s winter shirts and Margar’s new crib?  What if the actors were only rather stupid and excitable, rather selfish and ignorant men and women, to whom homes and children, gardens and books were only words?