“Feeling as you do,” Sally said after a troubled silence, “I would really say that you oughtn’t to marry any one else, Mart.  But even if Cliff gave you up, how could you marry a divorced man?”

“Oh, Sally—­don’t keep reiterating that it’s impossible!” Martie said with a flash of impatience.  “I know it—­I know it—­but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear!  You women who have so much can’t realize—–­”

“You have Teddy,” Sally suggested, in the silence.

“Yes, I have Teddy—­God bless him!” his mother said, with a sudden tender smile.  And she seemed to see a line of little Teddies, playing with Grandma Curley’s spools, glancing fearfully at the “Cold Lairs,” walking sturdily beside Margar’s shabby coach, chattering to a quiet, black-clad mother on the overland train.  She had her gallant, gay little Teddy still.  “I don’t know why I talk so recklessly, Sally,” she said sensibly.  “It’s only that I am so worried—­and troubled.  I don’t know what I ought to do!  Suppose I tell Cliff frankly, and we break the engagement?  Then John will come back, and there’ll be all that to go over and over!”

“But that’s—­just selfishness,” said Sally, spreading a checked blue towel neatly over her pan of dough, and adding last touches to the now orderly kitchen.

“Oh, men are all selfish!” Martie conceded.  “Every one’s selfish!  Cliff quite placidly broke Lydia’s heart years ago; Rose and Rodney between them nearly broke mine.  But now Cliff wants something from me, and Rose realizes that she has something to gain, and it’s roses, roses all the way.”

“Well, that’s life, Mart,” submitted the older sister.

“If I had it all to do over again,” Martie mused, “I wouldn’t come back after Wallace’s death.  Teddy and I could have made our way comfortably in New York.  By coming, I have more or less obliged myself to accept the Monroe point of view—–­”

“Oh, but Mart, we’ve had such wonderful times together, and it means so much to me to have you like Joe and the children!” said Sally.

“Yes,” Martie’s arm went about her sister, “that’s been the one definite gain, Sally, to see you so happy and prosperous, and to realize that life is going so pleasantly for you.  As the years go by, Joe’ll gain steadily; he’s that sort; and Dr. Hawkes’s children won’t have to envy any children in Monroe.  But, oh, Sis—­if I could get away!”

The old cry, Sally thought, as she anxiously studied the beautiful, discontented face.

Presently Clifford came, to take his future wife home, and Joe came back from the hospital in the Ford, and there was much friendly talk and laughter.  But Sally watched her sister a little wistfully that evening; didn’t Martie think this was all pleasant—­all worth while?

CHAPTER VII

Rose’s little daughter, pawn that she was in the game of Martie’s fortunes, was pushed into play the following day.  For Rose telephoned Martie at the Library, in the foggy early morning, that Doris was not well:  there was a rather suspicious rash on the baby’s chest, and if it really were measles, there must be no announcement luncheon to-day.