Martie drank it in eagerly, no faintest shadow of apprehension fell upon this evening.  She and Teddy walked to their little hotel; to-morrow she would see her editor, and they would search for cheaper quarters.  She would get the half-promised position or another; it mattered not which.  She would board economically, or find diminutive quarters for housekeeping; be comfortable either way.  If they kept house, some kindly old woman would be found to give Teddy bread and butter when he came in from school.  And on hot summer Sundays she and Teddy would pack their lunch, and make an early start for the beach; theoretically, it would be an odd life for the child, but actually—­how much richer and more sympathetic she would make it than her own had been!  Children are natural gypsies, and Teddy would never complain because his mother kept him up later than was quite conventional in the evening, and sometimes took him to her office, to draw pictures or look at books for a quiet hour.

And she would have friends:  women who were working like herself, and men, too.  She was as little afraid of the other as of the one now.  There would be visits to country cottages; there would be winter dinners, down on the Square.  And some day, perhaps, she would have the studio with the bare floors and the dark rugs.  Over and over again she said the words to herself:  she was free; she was free.

Dependence on Pa’s whim, on Wallace’s whim, was over.  She stood alone, now; she could make for herself that life that every man was always free to make; that every woman should be offered, too.  She had suffered bitterly; she might live to be an old, old woman, but she knew that the sight of a fluffy-headed girl baby must always stab her with unendurable pain.  She had been shabby, hungry, ashamed, penniless, humiliated.  She had been ill, physically handicapped for weary weeks upon weeks.

And she had emerged, armed for the fight.  The world needed her now, Cliff and Pa needed her, even Dr. Ben and Sally and Len would have been proud to offer her a home.  Miss Fanny was missing her now; a dozen persons idling into the Library in sleepy little Monroe’s summer fog, to-morrow morning, would wish that Miss David was not so slow, would wish that Mrs. Bannister was back.

The editor himself was out of town; but his assistant was as encouraging as a somewhat dazzled young man could be.

“She’s a corker,” said the assistant later.  “She’s pretty and she talks fast and she’s full of fun; but it’s not that.  She’s got a sort of push to her; you’ll like her.  I bet she’ll be just the person.  I told her that you’d be here this morning, and she said she’d call again.”

“I hope she does!” the editor said.  Her card was handed him a moment later.

In came the tall, severely gowned woman with the flashing smile and blue eyes, and magnificent bronze hair.  She radiated confidence and power.  He had hoped for something like this from her letters; she was better than his hopes.  She wanted a position.  She hoped, she said innocently, that it was a good time for positions.